"At the crossing of the border between the night and day where the lost and lonely find their twilight sway and the curse of their existence is the loneliness they feel where waking up w/ a stranger's the only thing that's real so don't sing me your swan song baby there's life in this ol' dog yet it ain't over till it's over until the fat lady sings, it ain't over until the swan spreads her wings and flies away"
Swan Song-The Mission
First and foremost sincere apologies for the lack of a blog last week.....in fairness I only ran two days and it didn't seem worth blogging......however this week I only managed one run but it was my season finale race so I'll blog the ever lovin' shite out of that.......what can I tell ye I'm complicated........
A little " house cleaning" first as I feel the " Elephant in the room" needs to be be addressed......loathe as I am to talk about my job in the blog it's the reason why I didn't run all week bottom line we went from being a three person outfit to a two person outfit this past week and frankly not only was lunch not an option but leaving for an hour to knock out my lunchtime 5 milers was null and void.......I don't know if this is going to be the norm moving forward....IF it is it means a hopefully substantial pay increase as in essence my coworker and I will be doing the work of three people so ye fuckers better be paying us as we've grown weary of the "Dead Donkeys" ye keep sending to our office period much less who collectively sit on their holes all day while we do all the work while they make more money than we do.......the yang to that ying is I will have to return to running in the evenings as I'm not willing or prepared to stop running, it will be a shock to the system after 2 years of running at lunchtime but needs must as they say, I only work two days this week b4 flying home to Dublin for a well earned vacation, hopefully upon my return just b4 the holidays the powers that be will have decided what the fuck they're doing and I can start planning my training for the upcoming 2026 season aka "The Golden Jubilee" 50th anniversary tour........I'll keep ye posted on what happens but rest assured the blog isn't going away just yet, neither am I and by Christ if I have to run in the evenings after work to log my miles per week then that's just the way it is.......nobody fucks w/ Cu Chulainn Cu Chulainn does the fuckin'.......... ye'll have to visualize the mic drop as I exit stage left.........BOOM!
So to the season finale race in the 2025 Redemption Tour.......last year I hit so many lows and slowest times it wasn't funny and the final insult to injury was a below par performance at the 2024 Schuylkill River Loop where I got my arse handed to me,I'd pretty much mailed it in after the Dublin Marathon, and in fact following the Penn Relays 5k on Nov 16th in the three weeks leading up to the Schuylkill River Loop I didn't register one run,I knew I had no business being out there but "medal hoor" that I am I figured show up trot around get my finishers medal, feck off home, the fact I ran a woeful 1.11.00 off 8.27 mile pace finished 130th overall and had to settle for 7th in the 60-69 age group was punishment enough but hey as Roy Keane always said "Failure to prepare,prepare for failure" this year if there was any arse kickin' to be done it'd be me doing it......
Glass half empty w/ Penn Relays 5k clashing w/ the Rocky Run and not being able to get into either the Half Marathon or 8k the following weekend when the Philly Marathon was ran it meant I hadn't raced in 4 weeks, glass half full fresher legs and the fact I hadn't ran a lick since Wednesday of last week meant I was well rested going into this mornings race
After 2 years of having to go " out and back" on Kelly Drive, over the Falls Bridge and a short distance on W. River Dr this year the Grand Auld Dame that is the Schuylkill River Loop was not only celebrating her 54th running{ the oldest race in Philly no less!} but restored to her former and rightful glory as the 8.4 mile loop,starting on Kelly Dr up towards and in front of the Art Museum steps over to W.River Drive upto and over Falls Bridge and back down Kelly Dr to finish in front of Lloyd Hall at the start of Boathouse Row
It was a brisk 37 degrees but sunny at 10am when the siren went off, definitely a day for gloves for yours truly, long sleeved base layer under my Palestine running vest {#FuckNetanyahu} and 3/4 length running tights.....fairly sure since the Radnor Run at the end of October this has been my race wear, got a reasonably clear start on what is a narrow sidewalk w/ almost 400 runners jockeying for position I didn't want to be right up front and pulled out to a brisk opening mile by the speed merchants and yet I clocked a brisk 6.59 opening mile split, as my former coach used to say " can't put the Genie back in the bottle, can't put the toothpaste back in the tube now"....
7.15 for mile 2, 7.24 for mile 3 and 7.23 for mile for, the lack of training the last 10 days meant I hadn't given any thought to what kind of pace/ time I should be looking at,when I ran the 10 miler at the Rocky Run a month ago I managed 8.09 mile pace so I felt something a bit quicker today was fair game.....how much quicker we were about to discover.
Based off of my splits I'd gone thro 4 miles in 29.01 were it not for that pesky .4 of a mile at the end I might've been looking at a sub 60 time, not shur how mile 5 ended up as my slowest split at 7.36 but after clearing the Conrail bridge overhead after crossing the Falls Bridge I did roll my sleeves up metaphorically and physically, as I always say be it a race or training when the sleeves get rolled up it time to get down to business.....
7.29 for mile 6 I was pretty much in "no mans land" and had been since mile 1 nobody snapping at my heals but the runners ahead didn't look like they were coming back to me either w/ 2 miles to go it was a case of keep on keepin' on
7.28 for mile 7 and the knowledge the finish was coming, I reeled in and passed the one runner who'd snuck by me around the Columbia bridge,7.21 for mile 8 a 29.54 split which for 8 miles was 58.55 b4 a 2,12 .4 of a mile to cross the line in 61.07 off 7.20 mile pace......a far fuck cry from last years 1.11.00 off 8.27 mile pace to channel my inner Juma Ikangaa " the will to win means nothing w/out the will to prepare"
47th out of 372 runners and second in the 60-69 age group,nice to finish the season on the podium, as of today I have 765 miles for the year 4 shy off my 769 total in 2023 but 42 more than last years total of 723, while I don't envisage any miles this coming week but it's possible while in Dublin I could get some in and I would hope to finish off the year w/ a few runs upon my return from the motherland to not to let all this years hard work get away from me period......after all it's only 10 weeks till the opening race of the 2026 season.........
Medal #13 for the season, #269 for the career, more of the same next year would be nice as I continue to close in on #300
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