26.2 Ways to Run

Why did you start running? We all start running for a reason. For some people, the motivation is to lose weight, for some others the is to gain fitness to do other sports. There is of course the love of running as a sport in itself but I don't think I've ever met anyone who one day just laced up, went out and was converted. There's always something ahead in the distance that pulls you. That's the inital goal. The pits of short term goals Say you take up running in January to lose some weight after the excesses of December. You religiously get out 3 or 4 days a week to do 4 miles and after a couple of months you hit your weight target. Then what? The initial goal is achieved and there's no incentive to keep on running so, instead of 4 times a week, you now run twice a week. Instead of 4 miles you run 3, then 2... See the pattern? There has to be more than immediate objectives to keep you going. Otherwise, there are too many forks on the road, too many deci...

Visualisation... sounds kinda intuitive, no? You close your eyes and imagine yourself performing the task at hand whether it be scoring a try, hitting a hole in one or crossing the finish line at a marathon, but there's more to it than that. A dictionary definition will tell you visualisation is the act of using mental imagery to create visions of 1) what you want to achieve and 2) how you want to achieve it. For me, step 2 was missing for most of my life as I would only picture myself achieving the final result (i.e. scoring a try, finishing first in a race) but not the journey to get there and that's as important if not more so than the end result. To this, I would add that, the richer the picture the more effective the process. Think about it using this really simple example. If I ask you to draw a cat and you draw this: You're not thinking much about the cat other than making sure it doesn't look like another kind of animal. It's simple and it gets yo...

So, with one successful in the bag, I was excited to test myself in the Frank Duffy 10mi race in August to see if the longer distances were improving too. Here's how it went: August - Frank Duffy 10mi As with the 10k race, the organisers moved the venue from Phoenix Park to Swords. I didn't have a clue about the route or the profile of the race. Mind you, I couldn't remember the last time I had run a 10mi race so couldn't figure out what pace to run at and this was critical.I just figured out it had to be slower than a 10k but... how much? No clue. So I ran and picked up the pace in the final 2k to come in at 1:17. I was happy with that but a friend I met at the race said "you can easily run the half in 1:40". I had never done that or got even close to it. Still as you can see, I was still improving. September - Dublin Half Marathon Crazy targets, unrealistic expectations, unachievable goals... these were some of the thoughts that were going through ...

Reading through my old posts from 2018, one thing that stands out is that after the Rotterdam marathon I felt not cheated, but deflated. Despite ramping up the training, results hadn't been great. However, something was happening cause a week after Rotterdam I ran the Great Ireland Run - and by the way, what's the story with that race this year? There's no information online at all? - and even though I was meant to run it just for fun, I ended up running about 16 seconds away from a new PR. That gave me a big boost of confidence. So, here's the rest of the year in figures: April - Rotterdam marathon. Check out my post  here Great Ireland Run. As I said, I was very satisfied with the result, spceially cause it was so unexpected and unintended. Just to put it in perspective, here's the results from the same race in previous years. You can definitely see the progression through time. May - Bron to run series. Of course I wanted to see what I could do. Of cou...

I've been a competitive athlete all my life. I've been involved in different sports at different levels since the age of 8 and along the way, a lot of coaches have spoken to me or my team about visualization. "See yourself scoring that try" "See yourself winning that match". Only now I realise that I never understood what they meant. It's easy to close your eyes and see yourself scoring a try, a winning goal or whatever, but all boys do that when they play footie on the street. So how does that help you achieve anything in a proper competition? That's the piece I never understood and maybe my coaches never did either. I think the confusion comes from the overlapping of two concepts: imagination and visualization. Imagination allows you to see yourself on the pilot seat of a spaceship to Mars to rescue Lady O'Mygodyouregorgeous but has nothing to do with reality. Visualization on the other hand, is about seeing yourself achieving things that you...

A week ahead of the 2018 Mexico City marathon I know there are thousands of runners out there pounding the pavement 5 or 6 days a week to fullfill their goal, whether it is to get a new PB or simply to complete it without walking. Sadly, there are some others that are preparing themselves in a different way. They are studying the course to see where they can take shortcuts. They are checking metro stations where they can jump in for a few stops and re-join the race. Or simply, they are just thinking "hey, I can join the race half way through, run a half marathon and still collect my t-shirt and my medal". Win-win situation all around isn't it? Only it's not. I'm not naive. I know that cheating happens in every race, specially the big ones. I suppose the same motivation exists for cheaters in the Boston marathon as it does in the Mexico City marathon. What's annoying is the scale of cheating at Mexico City. Marathon investigations published a really detailed ...

I have to admit that the  Rotterdam marathon  felt a bit disappointing after all the training I had put into it just to finish 6 seconds slower than the previous one. There were a lot of positives to take out of the experience but those nuggets only surfaced after the sulking had subsided.  A week after the marathon I did the Great Ireland Run. It was supposed to be an easy-to-moderate run (I had planned to complete it in 55 mins) but on the day the competitive side of me won the argument and decided to give it socks and "see what happens". In my mind the worst case scenario was that i would have to stop and walk at some point or slow down considerably. Well, that didn't happen! What happened instead was that: 1) I didn't have to slow down at all 2) I didn't have to stop (in previous years I had had to stop and walk for a few minutes) 3) I came only 14 seconds short of my PB of 46:02 What I learnt that days is that all the training for Rotterdam had in fac...