Full Marathon - Age Group PB and Irish Record (TBC)

Continuing with the Crazy Bear challenge with days lost and finishing line closing in I had to come up with a plan to try and get the remaining 7 half marathons in with 6 days left - simple - 1 a day and with a double up. Hmm but that was complicated when I offered to help out my father in law with some work on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday ... so 7 half marathons in effectively 3 days - bugger - ok then 3 HM's on two days and then a gentle one to get over the line - well if I'm doing three a day I might as well do a full marathon and so that was today's plan - get up at 6 and do a HM at the gym then home and refuel while doing a few chores and back to the gym for a full marathon. After which I was popping round to finish laying a laminate floor and then put a bed together.. good job I ain't working.

This mornings HM went pretty well - lifted the stroke rate to 22 to ease the pressure on the legs and kept it at 70% HRR finished with decent time of 1:18:28.2 or 1:51.6 ave.

So back in and a fiddle to get set up off I set the target was the current Irish 40-49H record of 1:53.1 or 2:39:06.3 set by Ally Cooper. I find a groove of sitting just below 1:50 pace rating 24 and felt confident of holding it - although the HR did rise quite quickly initially - so went with that - all was going well until about a hour from the end when I guess the earlier HM and lack of proper refueling took it's toll and had to draw on a lot of grit to try and even continue - took a few stops for water and chocolate but I'll be honest I was looking at the "wave" (the erg equivalent of the runners wall lol) well after what seemed like a eternity I did manage to get back into a groove but the initial plan was in tatters and it was a case of best of what was left - bearing in mind the circumstance I was happy with result and after all it is a new record and age group PB - plus only 4 HM's left to do now!

 the list above is missing a HM on the skierg

define your day don't let the day define you - Age PB 40-49H Marathon

So today is my last day in the office - after 10.4 years my role has been made redundant and so I'm off to pastures new - just popping in to collect a few things and go for lunch so with that in mind and the Crazy Bear challenge  in full swing I plumped for a full marathon today - and as my age group PB for the full marathon was only 1:57.1 pace (2:44:43.7 my overall PB is 2:28:30.8 1:45.6 pace) I figured I could break that age group PB easily enough (I did think it was still the Irish record but having just looked at the rankings I discovered Ally Cooper pulled 2:39:06.3 in October 1:53.1 - balls really should have checked that before starting lol) so with a target of 1:54 in mind off I set - had a few moments of doubt - not because of anything other than the ache of such distance - still dug in and kept going - just after 2 hours the fire alarm went off and although one of the instructors popped over and tried to communicate it to be (headphones in) the manager then came over and told me to carry on (only stopped for a moment) so in the end I managed 2 hours 42 minutes 19.9 seconds (was trying to get 2:42:19.5 - 42195 being the marathon distance) this was done at r22 75% HRR for the majority of it - and thanks to Ally I have a new target :o)

East Coast Harbour Marathon - #runnin

Reasons

At the end of 2015 my wife and I were delighted to learn that we would be blessed to have a baby due on the 17th August 2016. We were aware at an early stage that the pregnancy wasn't going to be "easy" but then we found that our baby wasn't growing as much as it could be. At this point we started having move regular scans and tried to identify the reason. Friday the 13th of May we had results back that identified the baby had what's known as "Edwards Syndrome"

"The conditions are associated with severe mental handicap and several physical defects. Most affected individuals die before or soon after birth and they rarely survive beyond the first year of life."

Our beautiful angel fought on though and got to a point in time that meant the best possible timing for the worst possible outcome - we've all said that Louis Joseph looked after his mummy and he did so till the end. His little heart stopped beating and on July the 13th 2016 he was "delivered to the angels".

So in honour of his fighting spirit and memory I took on the East Cork Harbour Marathon  - the full marathon - I had a few people doubt I'd make it weighing in at over 17 stone and being 6'4" I'm not exactly built for distance running. I finished in 5 hours 7 minutes and to boot I really enjoyed the experience - having a few difficulties with calluses on my feet - especially the left - but other than that all good. I even had the pleasure of meeting two lovely ladies who guided my round Eimear and Ann - and even stopped for a coffee in Inch at about 20 miles lol.

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