I can’t believe I haven’t done any training in 4 weeks. So it appears I’m going 3 months on, 1 month off now! That doesn’t seem like a sensible training plan by anyone’s stanards. I can explain away some of this (2 weeks injured, 1 week skiing) but the last week was quite simply me being in bad form and being lazy and not being in the humour to go out and do any training. Simple as that, I wasn’t arsed.

Now, I am once again arsed and am actually a bit re-invigorated, so today being a Monday I got my running shoes on and got them dirty (they were immaculate until today’s run, didn’t look like they had been taken out of their box) with a run and, if I’m breing honest, part walk around Marlay Park. Full Details of the workout below if you’re interested.

I have to say, it’s depressing how quickly the fitness just evaporates into the ether. I had put in about 3 months training in one shape or former (admittedly, very little running) but out jogging today, I felt like I could be about to die at any minute. I would say I walked between .7 and 1 of the 3.7 miles because of a combination of tiredness and fear that I was going to cause myself and injury!

BUT at least I got back out there and did something, which is progress and is particualrly suprising since I found myself tired and grumpy on the couch yesterday watching Oprah (Ellen was the guest, with her hot wife) and certainly not in the mood to go back out and run around a park in the freezing cold!

<a href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/ireland/un/unknown/540126685620887656″ mce_href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/ireland/un/unknown/540126685620887656″>iMapMyRun+: 22 Feb 2010 16:29</a><br/><a href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/ireland/un/unknown” mce_href=”http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/ireland/un/unknown”>Find more Runs in Unknown, </a>

Summary
Name: iMapMyRun+: 22 Feb 2010 16:29
Type: Regular Run
Date: 02/22/2010
Start: 15:54:07
End: 16:29:25
Time Taken: 00:35:17

Workout Weight: 175.0 lbs.
Workout Route: iMapMyRun+: 22 Feb 2010 16:29
Total Distance: 3.73 mi.
Burned: 501 (kcal)
Workout Stats
Pace: 39:24 (min) 09:23 (avg) 02:40 (max)
Speed: 1.52 (mi/hr) (min) 6.39 (mi/hr) (avg) 22.42 (mi/hr) (max)

Spin1038 Dj Ryan Phillips is training for the Dublin City Marathon – Today was 22 February 2010, Day 119 of Marathon Training and saw him go for a run in Marlay Park, Rathfarnham.

Nice Place for a Run eh?

I’m not 100% sure what the hell to do, but what I can tell you is that after 5 days of not running on it at all, it’s still sore/tender to touch, I know for a fact it will hurt like hell if I run on it, and it was starting to cause me some serious discomfort when I walked up Djouce Mountain today. We weren’t going at a fast pace, it was very calm and relaxed, but about an hour into the walk (in proper light-weight hiking boots FYI) it was sore.

Anyway, the sum total of today’s exercise was a long walk about the Djouce mountain in wicklow. It’s definitely better than nothing, and given the inactivity over the last couple of days since I hurt my leg on Monday, I was just happy to be doing anything that constitutes exercise. I’m going to try and go to the gym tomorrow for a cycle. I’m really reluctant to push the leg though, for the simple reason that this day two weeks I’m going skiing, and the marathon is still 9 months away, so my priority is making sure I can ski pain free and not lose about €1000 because I overdo it in the gym or in the park out of stubbornness.

Anyway here’s a photo from up Djouce today, which officially counts as day 89 of marathon training!

Ryan Phillips training day 89 for the Dublin City Marathon 2010 – 23 January 2010

Back to the gym today, and a little bit of gym rage. I’m used to going to the gym in the afternoon, but I got help up yesteday doing stuff so I didn’t get to the gym until just after 6pm and it was full of people. I was not impressed. There were girls on all the threadmills, 3 friends who were working out together, which was sweet and nice and lovely except they had all just started when I arrived. Grrrr..

I spent 15 minutes on the Cross Trainer to warm up and keep busy, and to keep an eye on the threadmills so I could jump on as soon as one of them got off. Eventually one did, and I popped on. According to the training schedule (which putting up on the site is on my “to do” list) I was to do a 3 mile “hard” run today. Again, I had hoped to run a course outside, but also want to be able to track my distance and speed at tihs early stage, when I have no idea of my pace or what I’m doing., so that’s how I ended up waiting for the threadmill to start with.

I decided to try and minimise the risk with my ankle so I put on an ankle support on my left ankle and did my 3 miles at a faster pace than the last two runs. The threamills are in kiometres, so the pace I ran on Sunday was 10km/ph, then on Tuesday it was 11km/ph, so today I went up to 12km/ph – Running at 12km/ph gets you round the marathon course in 3.5 hours, which is my target.

The ankle help up fine, which I was delighted with. I’ll keep wearing the brace until I build up the strength in it with my exercises and wobble board. In terms of fitness, I also coped fairly well with the distance and speed. Was pretty tired at the end mind you!!

Feeling really good at the moment, this is starting to feel like progress…said he tempting fate!

She wasn't one of the offending girls...

There was more snow today, so everywhere public was still a bit ifffy and hard to run around, so I went back to the gym and the threadmill, despite repeated advice not to run on the threadmill. Anyway, that’s what I did, and I have to say that my right kneee wasn’t mad about and my left ankle was out and out angry about it! At 2 miles in I was wondering whether I should stop to protect my ankle from gettting injured, but then I figured that I was scheduled for another day off tomorrow so that hopefully I could recover then.

Mixed feelings to be honest. I ran it at a faster pace than I ran the 4 miles on Sunday, at a pace that would complete the marathon in just over 4 hours, and in terms of fitness, i had relatively little problem running the distance at the pace. The only real problem is the ankle and how it’s going to hold up when I keep running on it. I guess that’s why the training schedule says to take a day off between runs, to give the body time to recover. Very glad that I took the day off yesterday though.

In other good news, Mark McCabe has sent me a heart rate monitor that he doesn’t need or use to help with the training, which is a very decent thing for him to do. As they Tim Nice But Dim (and I) would say “what a bloody nice bloke”

So, that’s another step taken, and all the body parts just about held up! Hopefully the ankle will stay the course and get stronger as I go….

These things are poxy, mine wont do what it's told!

The reality is that despite what the training guide said, I had decided to go an do 30 minutes on the cross trainer, some weights and the whole 8 minute abs thing. Then I got in a bad mood and couldn’t face it so I ate a tin full of biscuits instead, hurrah!

With the benefit of hindsight (20×20 vision as it is) I am glad that my bad mood got the better of me, because during training on day 78 my ankle was very sore, but I’ll leave that until day 78′s entry I guess…

It’s a funny thing this training. All through my life, from school to college I was what my dad sometimes calls “a last minute merchant” where every project and college work I’ve ever had was always handed in on the last day. And so with the Marathon so far away, I haven’t got that sense of urgency I work best with. I still subconsciously (and sometimes a bit consciously too) think that I can just train harder next month or whatever and still get up to pace and fitness in time. It’s as much a psychological thing as anything else this running and marathon training. And I’m rubbish at these psychological games, which is awful news!

If it's good enough for Ferris....

After that I did manage a good 30 minutes on the cross trainer to be fair, but it probably wouldn’t have put a dent in the amount of crap that I shoved down my yapper last night. Still, it’s better than the last 2 days and that’s something to be at least mildly thankful for!!

I know how you feel

After just 10 minutes, mostly walking at a decent pace, my knee started to feel a bit iffy. I’m a bit worried that regardless of all the training I might do over the next 11 months, my knees just wont be up to jogging 26 miles. The doctor already advised me against doing marathons and said I should do triathalons instead (she’s never seen my swim, obviously). I’m going to go down to amphibian king this week or next and get decent runners as I’m determined to start my jogging come the 1st of January.

For what it’s worth, today was the sweatiest day so far. I decided to spare you the sweaty mess photos this time (even though I had an impressive puddle), so here’s some other random and more enjoyable photo instead, it’s of our Christmas Tree!!

Not me sweating

I ate a load of Halloween leftovers this morning (while trying to find my clothes!) which sank the diet for the day, but was on best behaviour after that and treated myself to a can of coke zero and some low fat crisps last night. I think i’m totally awesome drinking coke zero, but then I saw a report in the paper this morning that said drinking 2 cans of diet coke a day can DOUBLE your chances of getting serious kidney disease (or something) which I’m assuming also holds true for coke zero? That’s a disaster frankly!!

How could this be bad for me?

Operation “drink gallons of water” continues a-pace, with more wee breaks than seems healthy or helpful!!

Back to training tomorrow afternoon with another game of squash!