Non-Hungover recap

After another night of the cold sweats, I'm feeling pretty close to normal, although it still glows when I pee, no matter how much water I drink. Either someone put some neon dye in whatever I was drinking, or I still have some serious toxins in my body. No matter.

Last week I should have hit 56 miles on 6 runs. Given my social life interfered with this, I only ended up with 40. Disappointing, but this coming week was a recovery week anyway, so a reversal of last Sunday's run with this coming Sunday and I'm pretty much back on track. Every run between now and this Sunday is slated as an easy run, so I'm ditching the watch for the week. While this means that the pace might not necessarily be 'recovery pace', its so relaxing not to be a slave to the watch that the mental break is key. Today I did an easy 6 around Ringsend park, before finishing in the gym. Only did 2 sets of everything in the gym as opposed to the usual 3 in keeping with the 'recovery theme' but to be honest this felt like a bit of a waste of time and probably won't be repeated.

Before a quick recap of the concert, I have my laptop back from its life-saving surgery. There are some definite quirks that are pissing me off. For example, thus far any press of the 'i' key mutes the speakers, the 'k' key freezes the mouse pad, while this afternoon I had the pleasure of discovering that the ',' key increases the volume. Therefore typing anything involves periodic losses of music with periodic moments of deafness, during which the mouse typically won't respond to violent thrusts towards the volume control. But at least I have my baby back.

The concert. Holy batshit was it good. Post is too long already to go into mad detail, but the setlist is here. Link also has a brief video of Larry coming onto the stage and showing how friggin cool it must be to be him. 23 songs from 8 different albums. The show had everything, not to mention the greatest stage/lights I've ever seen. Will have a ton of pics on facebook that I'm currently uploading to the pc. Wish I had tickets to more than one night, and urge anyone in the US to look for tour dates in Sept/Oct and get your asses out to see it for yourselves.

Alive? Damn Swine Flu is a bitch

I however, have been suffering with nothing more than a hangover since, um Saturday morning.

Note to self: Jameson and training do NOT mix in anyway shape or form.

Sat: 5 miles, 36:40

Sun: Near death, no run

Mon: Not much better, 8 miles, no time

Mon night. Still hungover, debating whether I'll ever recover.

Will return to legitimate posting hopefully tomorrow, along with pics from the concert. Right now I'm going to try and sleep, as opposed just having cold sweats, f*cked up dreams and visions of rats climbing the walls. Someday I'll follow through on my threats to quit drinking.

Breathe

8 miles, 55:56
Gym


Ran a bit longer today and will go shorter tomorrow instead for reasons I'll outline below. The run was good, felt fresh for the most part; although on occasion I did feel some tiredness in the legs. The gym was the gym. Moseyed round, posed in the mirror for 20 mins and called it a day. The usual.
Tonight there is a lot going on. The London grand prix promises to be a sick meet, and unfortunately its the first time in years I won't be watching. Additionally Spurs are taking on Barcelona. While its only a pre-season friendly, it's not often your team gets to play the (legitimately) best team in the world. However, I'll not be watching this either.
Instead I'm going to check out this band, don't know much about them, think they're an up and coming group. Doubt there'll be many at the gig. U2, ever heard of them?? Nah me either.

60 years of history....

Wednesday I went to the gym for a planned 1hr bike ride, which turned into 30 mins plus 20 on the cross trainer. The legs were absolutely knackered so took yesterday off, in the hope that the shin would be fine as a result.

Problem was woke up this morning with what seems to be a developing chest cold/cough. Decided to try to run to help raise the body temp and sweat it out. Was somewhat successful in that I felt better post run than pre. However, the shin was still tight, and the run felt bloody awful. Ran for 41mins, in which I probably ran no more than 5.5 miles. Not the right weekend to be sick, as Ireland have the chance to win the Six nations tomorrow for the first time since its inception; having not won the prior 5 nations since 1984, and a win will see them do the first grand slam in 61 years. The country will go bananas if it happens/drown their sorrows if they dont. I just want to be fit enough to be part of it!

Some good news for the day was getting 4 tickets to U2 for July 24th. Cannot wait.

No Line on the Horizon

Thurs: Day Off. Achilles was very sore to walk around on all day so shelved plans for an evening run and put the feet up. Not thrilled about it but want to try to nip this in the bud.

Fri: Gym. 40 mins on the bike, 10 on the cross trainer, 15 mins on the treadmill. This was absurd in a few ways. One I shouldnt have run as a) I was wearing runners that are totally shot and b) my achilles was sore. But I couldnt hack the cross trainer so jumped on the treadmill in frustration. Amazingly everything felt good. Realised that I've been running too hard since I started training again using the logic that if I want to run sub 3hrs in the marathon I need to run sub 7s now. Amazing how everything I am

studying I choose to ignore about my own running. 

Sat: Day off. Achilles wasnt terrible, but didnt want to push my luck either. Was eagerly anticipating the rugby, and while the result was what I wanted (as long as we beat the English) the game was shite as a spectacle and the referee needs his head examined to not have seen the blatant fouls by the cheating scumbag limey gits. Had a few pints with Enda post match, which was delightful. Naturally. 

Sun: 6 miles, 43:20,

Map

Went out to Santry to watch the Irish XC champs (more on that in a minute). Ran home, and didnt feel spectacular as I'd been standing in the rain for the previous hour, was cold, thirsty, and hungry. Surprised when I measured the run that I'd run that fast (relative use of the word fast) as I felt like I was crawling in an effort to spare my achilles from unnecessary abuse. Deeply satisfied that neither the quad or the achilles felt any real pain. 

As for the race itself, it was a corker. Kel went straight to the front on a relatively flat, dry course that had a lot of give in it that tends to drain the legs.

  Had Keneally sitting on him through 5k 

 before swapping the lead till around the 7k mark, at which point Keith hit the front and started to gradually stretch out a lead of 40 yards. Coming into the last lap with about a mile to go however, there were a few murmurs around the course that the legs had come off Kel, and Keneally had visibly reduced the gap to about 25 yards. However, Kel worked the only real downhill portion of the course to regain the lost advantage. Around the last km Keneally was visibly closing the gap but Kel's lead was never really in doubt and held on for the win by about 15 yards or so. 

Vinny had a similar battle with Gary O'Connor for 3rd which he won in convincing fashion over the last 3k and looked very strong throughout. Delighted for Kel to get the win that was against as good a field as you could have at the Irish champs (only Fagan & possibly Ledwith missing who would have changed the result). Also saw a few lads I used to run with/against in the field which made me realise how out of my league elite running is these days as the lads (and all credit to them) were blown out of it totally. 

U2's new album (No Line On The Horizon) was released here in Ireland on Friday. Have been listening to it non-stop since. While it's not the 'new sound' that was promised, its a cracking good album with some great opening riffs to songs that flows very well. A slightly more melodic tone than previous albums (Moment of Surrender is a good example of this) but follows the trends set by All That You Can't Leave Behind and How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. All in all, good shit.

Lastly, Spurs got beaten by Man Utd on penalties in the final of the Carling Cup today. Given that I chose to go to the XC over watching it shows that I didn't hold out much hope of victory but its a huge disappointment none the less. Cannot understand how men paid millions of pounds a year to play football are unable to hit the target from 12 yards out. Its friggin ridiculous. Season after season of disappointment and failure. Such is the life of a Spurs fan.