"I think I can make it now, the pain is gone all of the bad feelings have disappeared,here is the rainbow I've been praying for it's gonna be a bright, bright sun-shiny day look all around there's nothin' but blue skies look straight ahead,nothin' but blue skies I can see clearly now, the rain is gone I can see obstacles in my way, gone are the dark clouds that made me blind,it's gonna be a bright, bright sun-shiny day"
I Can See Clearly Now-Hothouse Flowers
A landmark week for yours truly, as the auld saying goes " sit on the fence long enough all ye'll get is splinters in the hole".......and who wants that?????
Monday October 6th Off the back of Sundays blown long run the last thing I needed was more aggravation,off the back of a fraught morning at work that didn't need to be that bad my Easy 5 mile run ended up becoming an untimed run......
I think it was trying to cross 16th and JFK Blvd an intersection I seldom get across w/out having to stop that was the culprit, I thought.....infact I know I hit the reset button but for some reason it didn't reset......by the time I reached 22nd and the Parkway and had to wait out the red light I realized Hal the little Bollix Garmin wasn't recording the run........I know I pick on Hal almost on a weekly basis in my blog but this one has to go down to "human error" I didn't look at the Garmin after restarting my run, if I had've I would have seen it wasn't recording the run, by this time a fair chunk of he opening mile hadn't been recorded, rather than try and " patch it in" and eyeball/guess the distance I said the short version of the Serenity Prayer "Dear God, please grant me the serenity......ahh fuck it!!!" and decided today would be the untimed run and tomorrow would be my easy run, I believe the Marine Corp mantra is " we don't plan, we improvise"......
Tuesday October 7th From one mantra to another, the auld Boy Scout motto is "Be Prepared" and since my next race is the Radnor Run on October 26th and I know from my previous experience in 2022 ye'd want to be part shaggin' Kerry Mountain Goat to tackle those hills I thought it high time to switch up my runs on Kelly Dr, W.River Dr/MLK Dr which while great craic and all that are pancake flat to incorporate some hills so I opted for the North boundside of the Ben Franklin Parkway which takes me past the Art Museum and down to Lloyd Hall where dead opposite is Sedgely Drive which branches into Lemon Hill Drive it works out at 6 hills as Kelly Dr back up to the Art Museum is up hill, it's better than nothing
44.21.9 off 8.52 mile pace not a bad start, hopefully over the coming weeks it gets quicker and I get more and more hills into my legs b4 tacking the Radnor Run
Wednesday October 8th While hills are essential so is raw speed so the lung bustin' gut wrenchin' 5 mile Tempo run will continue to be a staple of my weekly routine
Sadly not the sub 40 that last week yielded but none the less a satisfactory 40.53.8 off 8.10 mile pace,opening in 8.37 which has to allow for several intersections between 16th St and 24th I hit my stride on the Schuylkill River Trail and clocked splits of 8.09 and 8.08, b4 starting to " suck air" on mile 4 but a still respectable split of 8.24
For the first time in a while on a run{ this is only the second Tempo run in recent months} I could feel knee lift and leg turnover in the final mile, this is very welcome because it tells me the fast twitch muscles are still responsive when I need them to be,I know the focus has been on distance of late but the next three races are 5 miles, 10k and 5k. closing mile was 7.56, as the saying goes " what's for you won't pass you by I still feel there are some reasonable times to be had over the shorter distances
Thursday October 9th Been a feckin' minute since I've managed a Monday thro Thursday routine..... I won't get used to it as I'm shur next week or the week/weeks after will be all over the place like Chicken shit on a farm, but livin' in the moment it was nice.....almost as nice as a Recovery run the day after the auld Tempo run.........
Same route as Tuesday, Ben Franklin Parkway, Kelly Dr, Sedgley Dr,Lemon Hill Dr and back on a crisp afternoon, 63 degrees and 37% humidity the question was sleeveless or short sleeves?......I went sleeveless but it's only a matter of time b4 the short sleeves come out and I start routin' and bollixin' for long sleeves, October is that kind of month where ye never truly know what ye'r gonna get w/ the weather and having established I still hold onto my Boy Scout core values all these years after the fact I like to be prepared, I don't want to miss a run because I didn't put the right running gear in my backpack the night b4
Shaved 70 seconds off of Tuesdays time w/ a 43.11.3 off 8.28 pace, it'll be interesting the next two weeks in the lead up to Radnor how much quicker my hill runs are......but also how much cooler the temps are as we get deeper into October.....
And now for the show stopper, after some careful consideration and soul searching on my part{ yes there is soul still in there somewhere deep below all the cynicism!!!} I have decided NOT to run the Philadelphia Marathon next month, it wasn't an easy decision to make but the truth is having struggled in my last two attempts to log a 16 miler and lest we gloss over the grind that was the final 4 miles of a 14 miler a week b4 the Distance Run 4 weeks ago it became obvious right now I don't have what it takes to attempt 26.2 miles in 6 weeks time.
I don't want a repeat of last year in Dublin where I knew I didn't have the miles under my belt and had to endure a long slow slog over the final 16 miles after a relatively comfortable opening 10 miles, time is against me, I didn't get out this weekend as I knew Sunday wasn't an option and ......stop me if ye've read this here b4 " the feckin' humidity was off the charts yesterday" at 1pm it was 80% plus.....feck that I'm shit sick of coming up short on these long runs, I would rather hold my hand up now and say I don't have in me to run 26.2 than fall on my arse again like I did in Dublin
It's frustrating on several levels,none more so than the fact that the only reason it was an option was it's the 40th anniversary of my marathon debut in Harrow in Essex just outside London way back on November 3rd 1985 but reality has to come b4 nostalgia and the reality is even IF I got a 16 miler under my belt next Sunday the following three weekends are races which would then leave the weekend b4 the Marathon to attempt an 18 miler or 20 miler.....too risky for my anemic blood ye can bluff yer way through 5k,10k,10 miles even a half marathon......but if ye don't put the miles in for a marathon it will trust me, chew ye up and spit ye out so for that reason I have opted to " swipe left"on the Philadelphia Marathon.
Is this the end of my marathon hopes and dreams?.......I don't think so what I don't want to do is make big cacophonous statements here that "I'm done w/ the Marathon" only to turn around sometime next year and announce "I'm training for the{insert city here} Marathon, lets let the dust settle on this decision, finish out the 2025 season and hopefully continue to train on a weekly basis like I have been, the Love Run half marathon is at the end of March next year I'll use that as motivation thro the Winter months and see where we go from there......