It's now time for another half-marathon. the adidas race series which included a 5 and a 10 miler ends on Saturday with the half. as a celebration I have finally officially entered the DUBLIN MARATHON. so now, there's no escaping it!! my training has been quite random.... some week I have gone out only once for a 5 miler; some other weeks I have gone out once and then attempted (and succeeded) a long run. two sundays ago I managed a 15,73 miler and last sunday a 18,63 one. I still don't know how that was possible. my legs feel fine really but tuesdays have become tough: I feel tired and HUNGRY! does that happen to me only? are the tuesdays after your LSRs tough?? the new academic year has started already and we are now in week 2! after spending the summer months working on my research in the peace and quiet of my flat, starting term with hundreds of students and colleagues trying to talk to me was a shock to the system. I love being surrounded by people and I love my students. it's just hard to adjust to the sudden change; I feel overwhelmed but I know it will get easier and easier. this is going to be my last year at dublin university since my contract expires in august 2009. ideally I'd like to either stay here or move back to england but the situation is gloom. languages are not popular with the university power-that-be (probably none of the subjects belonging to the humanities area are). so the idea is now to apply somewhere else, and after ignoring the states for all my working life it's time for me to acknowledge the fact that I might have a chance to find a permanent job over there. it would be such a huge change for me and it will be difficult to explain this choice to my parents: england and ireland do not seem too far any more, but the states are. well...it might come to nothing, but the filling-the-application-form process has now started....scary!! BUT let's focus on what's happening at the moment and let's hope that the half marathon goes well. I'll meet up with the irish fetchies and I am sure it'll be fun!
yes, I am still alive but I guess my posting goes with my training and when I am not doing much I don't post much.
in the last few weeks my mojo has been coming and going; then it was time to hit the road with some italian friends of mine and go to Longford. They did the marathon and I did the half. my pb is 1:58 but I knew that I wasn't fit enough to beat that. as soon as we started it began to pour down (as you can see from the pic) and it wasn't pleasant. when the rain stopped I was drenched and tired.
I stopped for the first time at mile 3 and then I walked at every drink station. half way through I realised that I wasn't going to finish under 2hs so I took it easy ending up doing a LSR rather than a race. I finished in 2:06' and I was pleased with it anyway.
the race was on august 24th and since then I managed to run only once. I must have caught something on race day and I have been ill with a silly flu since then. I had to skip my LSR last sunday. dublin is getting closer and I am not ready yet. I haven't run longer than 13 miles. hopefully this week will be better.
my press up challenge suffered too last week, but I keeping at it. I am now on W3 D1 and it's getting really tough. but I can see improvements in my upper body strength and I am loving it!!
