Mad training in the rain!

I think all sense has left me! Last Friday, at Finbarrs, Marie suggested that I try out Monday evening training, and I agreed. High vis gear is compulsory on Monday nights, so I donned my oversize high vis and my flashing shoe light, that I got from the VHI, and I joined about 25 other people in high vis at the end of Mardyke Lane. During the announcements at the start, new people got a clap. I also got a clap, not for being a new person, but for being new to Monday night training! Haha!
We then headed off for four miles around Cork city, at a decent enough pace. All the high vis must have been quite the sight, because we were beeped by lots of cars! Our run ended at the bottom of a long hill near the track, and we finished the evening with four hill reps, about 100m long each. Dan, the coach, kept telling us to move out of the way of cars “because it’s all consultants that live up here and they’ll kick us off their private road if we annoy them!”
I walked home, in the dark, up Strawberry Hill. By the time I made it in the door, I think I was a bit in shock from the 80 minutes of mad running we’d just done, especially after my 80 minute long run yesterday!
And, as if that wasn’t enough, I followed it all up with training again on Wednesday night (having done absolutely nothing on Tuesday)! The rain on Wednesday was torrential, and I had to jog to training in ankle deep flood water! Because of the monsoon-like conditions, the session had been changed from 800m reps to a 20 minute tempo with Indian file sprints. Again, the pace was a bit mad, but me and Marie clung on to the back because having to run in your own in that weather would have been terrible. At least, with the Indian file drill, you get to the front every so often and can slow the pace briefly! Haha!
I’m not sure I’ve ever done so much running before. I’m loving it, and it’s great motivation that me and Marie have an ongoing agreement to show up every week, so that we each have someone to run with! However, it’s probably also just as well that I’m heading away for the week now and having an enforced break from training! Czytaj więcej