{Re}Building The {Im}Perfect Beast

 First and foremost apologies for the lack of blogging recently, to be fair there wasn't a whole heck of a lot to blog about as my running hit a wall of sorts, hopefully that's behind me now as I've spent the last three days "pounding the pavements" trying to get back into a routine

There have been two races recently a disastrous Love Run half marathon on March 24th and a slightly better Hot Chocolate 15k last Saturday ,I'm still at a loss as to why my half marathon went "tits up" at 1.39.17 off 7.32 mile pace it ranks as my second slowest ever half marathon only the infamous 2017 Odyssey half marathon aka "the mother of all cock ups"  ranks slower

Why it went pear shaped I'm still at a loss to understand I've been running for 48 years  I'm not naive enough to think there won't be bad days period muchless  days when you just can't put your finger on what went wrong, this was one of them, is it possible I over trained???? I had 4 12 mile runs logged by the end of December and 4 14 milers in January/February and the 3 16 miles in February/March I missed the 2022 Love Run due to a hip injury and the 2023 edition due to my knee, my last two half marathons were the 2022 and 2023 Philadelphia Distance Run both of which were hampered by humidity so maybe I went into this years Love Run a little too gung ho.....it's done now it was a poor race by my standards but to quote the always quotable Roy Keane" nobody died.....life goes on".........

To say I went into Saturdays Hot Chocolate 15k on Kelly Drive a little snake bitten  is an understatement, the 7.32 mile pace over the Love Run had caught me well and truly off guard I expected to run faster maybe I over estimated where I'm at in training right now so the plan for the 15k was 7 minute mile pace and a 63 minute finish

I got my customary good start and eased my way through the first corral on route to a 6.54 opening mile however b4 reaching the second mile marker the 7.30 mile pace runner pulled up along side me as my pace dropped to a 7.35 mile, we went back and forth over the next 3 miles as my splits went 7.35-7.23-7.18 I knew it was windy going north on Kelly Drive to begin w/ plus after  my last outing it might be prudent to go out a bit conservatively  for the opening half of the race and then push the pace for the inbound 4.5 miles

After finally dropping the 7.30 mile pacer at mile 5 I thought I'd have "open road" between the Conrail bridge and the Art Museum finish...........hold my Gatorade!!!!!!!

This year the race offered a 10k option to the already existing 5k and 15k I hadn't given it any thought that the 10k and 15k would start at the same time until I reached the 6 mile mark in 7.06 and the 10k turnaround..........the word Clusterfuck sprang to mind........ my clear run to the finish line was now obscured by the 12 minute mile pace 10k runners don't get me wrong I have untold respect for any runner no matter how slow they may be to put themselves out there and run but the powers that be might want to rethink start times for next years races as I'm sure I wasn't the only one hampered by this

Despite having to weave in and out of the 10k runners my final 3 miles went:7.06-7.04-7.04 for a 67.21 finish off 7.13 mile pace, still not at the 7 min mile pace I would like to be at and where I think I should be at but maybe that's "high notions like the mountain goats in Kerry"  as the auld fella liked to say and maybe all the hill work I've done on my long runs has taken a toll on my legs?

46th overall but more importantly a comfortable winner of the 60-64 age group, adding considerable  insult to injury at the Love Run on top of a poor race and slow time I missed the 60-64 podium by 25 seconds in 4th so today felt like a bit of redemption and hopefully yields another medal to the collection and keeps me on pace for Dublin being #250

I have four weeks now till Broad Street and hopefully time to work on getting that 7.13 mile pace down to 7.00,Dublin is still 29 weeks away if I can get down to 7.00 mile pace by Broad Street I'll have 25 weeks to try and get down to 6.50 mile pace which would get me sub 3.00 in Dublin.....little by little, mile by mile, training run by training run......