While dashing about Europe, Emmet Malonestill found time to prepare for last Saturday's half-marathon, but the wife remains unimpressed
Partners, we low-grade runners know all too well, can be a cruel breed, and in my own case further evidence was provided on Saturday afternoon. Having completed what I reckoned was a fairly decent half-marathon in the Phoenix Park, I was greeted back at my front door with a rather disparaging: "So, did you win?"
Then there is the tale of the humble soul I spoke to on the way to the start line over the weekend. He completed his first marathon last October in what seems to be a highly respectable four-and-a-quarter hours or so, but, through no fault of his own, had the misfortune to finish behind a couple of guys in large novelty outfits.
"Whaddya think," his wife recently inquired a little unnecessarily, "will you beat the two bottle of Corona this year?"
My own aim, regular readers will know, is to finish next month's race in less than four hours, which, I'm now also hoping, will be good enough to leave the boys disguised as Mexican beverages trailing a respectable distance behind. The time was pretty much plucked out of thin air as something that seemed reasonably difficult yet fairly achievable, but prior to Saturday I was seriously beginning to believe that I was on course to fall well short of the mark.
After a decent five-mile race a couple of months back, the 10-miler proved difficult and disappointing. This was due, at least in part, to a late night and too much wine. This time I was saved by the rugby, as a couple of post-work pints were cut short by the GAA correspondent's determination to get home to watch the game with his son.
Within a couple of hours I'd fallen asleep, after putting my own four-year-old to bed, and thus, almost despite myself, I showed up in pretty good shape for Saturday's race, which I finished in roughly (the official results are not, at the time of writing, up on the website) 1:46:30.
This, according to mcmillanrunning.com, puts me on course for something in the region of 3:47:00, which, while it seems wildly optimistic to me, must surely leave me a little leeway in my own battle to beat the boys in the beer suits.
More generally, Saturday wrapped up a good month for me. Work had taken me to Aarhus in Denmark, Bratislava and Prague, while there was also a brief family holiday in Portugal, and I had, in advance, been quite concerned that what passes for my training regime would completely fall apart.
As it turned out, things did slide a bit but I still did my most enjoyable run to date in a wonderful wooded park overlooking the sea in Aarhus, and what was at the time my longest, something between 18 and 19 miles, in Slovakia where, to guard against sagging willpower, I ran to a town about nine miles away without any money, thereby pretty much ensuring that I had no option but to run back.
Sadly, I arrived in Prague the morning after the city's first nocturnal 10km race and ended up being too busy while there to do anything but a couple of brief runs on a hotel-gym treadmill. It was on the 23rd floor but, somewhat mysteriously, the view was away from one of Europe's most beautiful city centres and towards an industrial estate and a string of tower blocks. Ah, such is life.
The half-marathon will probably also mark the last of my officially organised runs before the big day itself. To date, I've done the three Adidas Race Series outings, as well as two short races while working in the US back in May, and all have helped to provide focus to a training schedule that was, because of various time constraints, extensively improvised.
The options for this weekend are both attractive but, I suspect, out of the question, as they both require nights away after a spell in which there have been a few too many of those. Sean McFadden (featured early in this series in a piece on his Saturday morning training club) already has more than 200 entrants for his second annual "Mooathon" in Donegal. There is, as you might guess, a bovine theme to the half-marathon, with black-and-white dress mandatory, horns and udders encouraged. More than half a dozen countries will be represented and details, including offers on local accommodation, are at www.mooathon.com.
Then there is the Cork Business Houses Athletics Association annual Cork to Cobh race, which comes in at about 15 miles. Like the Letterkenny event, the course in Cork should prove really attractive to anyone whose training has largely consisted of pounding the streets of Dublin. Both take place on Sunday morning and details, in this case, can be obtained at www.corkbhaa.com.
A good deal of pounding about the capital still lies in store for me over the next couple of weeks but among the topics to be covered in the few articles that remain, I'll be looking at running for charity as well as the gear (that's apparel rather than performance-enhancing drugs) and all manner of gadgets.
Thoughts on these subjects, as well as any other comments or queries, would, as always, be welcome at marathon@irish-times.ie.