Valencia Marathon Week 7/12

October 23rd - 29th

Monday - Little bit sore on waking and with a travel day ahead, the best decision was to rest.

Tuesday - 10 miles ez (16k) with RCSI, a very therapeutic run for me as I recapped my race performance with the group and unloaded some baggage.

Wednesday - 7 miles ez (11k) an early start, nice fresh morning.

Thursday - 10 miles ez (16k) with RCSI, a few 400 meter reps in the middle, not at any great pace.

Friday - 5 miles ez (8k) around Bohernabreena reservoir, on the foothills of the Dublin mountains. A beautiful, quiet location to run and gather some thoughts.

Saturday - 20 miles ez (32k) some lingering fatigue in my legs and possibly in my head from the race. I'm normally good at putting disappointment behind me but for some reason negativity is loitering. I spent a lot of the run trying to get to the bottom of it and my assessment is that I'm bordering on overtraining. Some of the signs - feeling a little unmotivated, letting my good nutrition practices fall by the wayside and finally, low heart rate numbers on easy runs that don't equate to an easy perceived effort. Hopefully having an awareness of all this will help me make better decisions and I can turn this ship around.

As mentioned previously I've downgraded my target time by five minutes, however it may still need further adjusting!

Sunday - If I was having a pity party for myself the day before, today was the complete opposite. Super excited to cheer on all the Dublin City Marathoners, with a special interest in the twenty six DBR runners participating. I was at the 17 mile marker (27k) with two of my daughters, cheering and taking pictures Link to photos

Conditions were almost perfect, no wind, cool but with heavy showers. All the DBR guys ran superbly well and they put a smile on my face that is still holding.

Now all I have to do is bottle their elation and sprinkle it over the next five weeks of my training and I should be good to go, hmm sounds a bit too easy, let's see.

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Dave Bradshaw Running

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