The Sunday Column - The last big runs

I am breathing heavily as I write this. I'm set to 'taper' in a week (more on that further on) so I needed to get in a couple of decent length runs before then. Thus this morning and yesterday I hit the mean streets of Ranelagh.


'The Distance', by Cake

I had contemplated doing the Simon Community's 5 miler in the Phoenix Park on Saturday morning but getting out there in time for the 10.30 start was just plain unfeasible.

Instead I opted to do a similar distance around my own area in Ranelagh. I've a lap of the area set out that's just under 2 miles long so three of these would be ample replacement. At 11am with my iPod on my arm I set out from Anna Villa. Around the corner on Ranelagh Road I encountered what would be a recurring obstacle that morning.

Babies, lots of babies. Ranelagh's full of them in their buggies, being rolled around and generally proving an obstacle to cumbersome runners like myself. If slalom running ever becomes an Olympic sport I'm a shoo-in for gold in the over 100kg category.

In my haste to get around them I realised that I had done an awfully fast first mile, I kept this up for the rest of the lap and was duly feeling it with two thirds of my run still to go. I ran a much slower second lap, as more toddlers swarmed the streets of my adopted village.

Up by Belgrave Square I took a mild breather before getting going again. Word to the wise, when you're feeling wrecked and need to keep running 'Stronger' by Kanye West (yes I know it's just a Daft Punk cover, but it's a great cover) is quite a good choice. In more refreshed form I took off on the final lap of the morning, slowing as I came to Birchall's at the corner of my road.

Later that day, having realised I wouldn't be drinking that night, I figured "Fuck it, I'll do another five tomorrow". So at 9.30am this morning I took off once again on another three lap stint.

Sundays are great. Parents are too tired or hungover to bring their kids anywhere, especially that early, so the roads were empty. Ranelagh was a virtually buggy free zone. The one family I did come across that could have impeded me even managed to spot me at a distance and the father moved the rest out them out of the way to clear a path (yeah, that dude's a ledge).

This morning's five was actually faster than yesterday, and both sets were done at a pretty hard pace. Thus I am sitting on my couch three hours later, still somewhat out of breath. Of course the flatmate isn't even out of bed yet, lazy sod.

The reason I decided to put in these two sets when I did was very much a matter of timing. From next Sunday I'll be tapering, which is the fancy way of saying taking it easy until race day. The typical advice is that runners don't do any hard runs in the two weeks before a marathon and instead just focus on staying loose.

So with my training nearly complete for this phase it was time to get in some good miles before race day. I'll likely do another five next Saturday morning before the tapering period begins.