Nearly there!

I was running with Hugo (my brother, he is older than me by the way, he just doesn't like me mentioning it too often!) again this weekend, which means we were working off kilometers instead of miles. We were staying in Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow, so it was another coastal run, with beautiful scenery, and loads of hills. We set off on Saturday afternoon, in lovely sunny weather, but got absolutely drowned in the last km as the heavens opened.  Thank God we were nearly home, as it would have been hard to keep sloshing it out for much longer.

"It's all about time on your feet", is the advice that John has been dishing out lately, so with that in mind I set out to run one direction for an hour, before turning back. We actually ran a bit further, as we were near the 9 km mark, and I just wanted to make it easier to calculate speed per mile etc. I found the last half hour very tough, which surprised me, as the pace was deliberately slow, but I'm putting that down to the hills, and the fact that I had only 1 days rest between the weekend run and the previous session. I finished the 18 km in a time of 2 hours, 4 minutes and 15 seconds, and in a fairly exhausted state.  We went for a paddle in the sea to cool down, and then I spent a good 15 minutes stretching. This definitely paid off, as I wasn't as stiff on Sunday as I expected. That's my last long run before the big day, as Ray and myself are running in the Cloghan 10k next Sunday, and then we are on a wind down, to keep fresh for Saturday. I can't wait, and can't believe it's nearly here.

I got home on Sunday evening in time to see the Wolfe Tones play in The Canal Quarter Festival. I met up with Bubbles, who was in flying form.  He says this was his last hydration session, before running the Half Marathon, and who knows, maybe he's telling the truth! He was certainly enjoying himself, but he was spotted in a chipper later on, and while I wouldn't normally like to let the cat out of the bag, I saw the picture on facebook, so I guess that ship has already sailed. I think we're due on the radio tomorrow morning (Tue), and then of course John will be putting us through our paces in the evening, so until then Slán.