Back to the gym

Very wet and windy outside so took the soft option and headed to the gym. I'd won a 6 month membership to the gym in Oranmore recently so I thought I'd give that a look. A speed session on the treadmill awaited and I settled on running 8 x 800m off a rolling 4 minutes (just to keep the timing simple).

After a 3.5km warm-up, I set the treadmill to 18.9km/hour (3:10/km) and off we went. The first couple of efforts felt really comfortable so I then set the incline to 0.5 for the next couple. Still not happy I then set it to 1.0 for the final 4 efforts. I was jumping off and on the belt whilst leaving it running which was easy enough. I was taking my heart rate at the end of each effort and it was in the range of 145 to 150 so a little on the low side. It would fall to between 65 and 70 before the start of the next effort. A decent enough session but not the same as running outside...

But on a positive note, the knee behaved nicely. Maybe the road isn't the best idea at the moment and I need to do a bit more on the treadmill or on the grass. Yuk.

All up 74.6kms for the week. Nothing special - just ticking over really.

Best of luck to all the Dublin marathoners tomorrow. The forecast looks pretty ordinary, but it should be a good race with a very strong Irish field. I'd like to see Sean Hehir win it - he is in cracking form and would certainly be targeting sub 2:15 if the conditions were good. He'll have good company with the likes of Sergiu Ciobanu and Joe Sweeney running. One thing's is for sure, with no international elites this year it's a very open race.