Eve of the Test

With just three weeks to go, tomorrow is the big test before Dublin. I've dropped my mileage from 76 last week to 'just' 55 this week, assuming I get 19 in for tomorrow's Cork to Cobh 15M race - 2 miles warm-up and 2 miles cool-down after the race.

Yesterday was 5 miles easy, with 3 miles, very easy, with my daughter, this morning. I felt quite tired, but I find that's not unusual before a key race.

Weather forecast is looking good for tomorrow - it's quite windy and feeling cool today, with some pretty heavy showers. Tomorrow is supposed to be a lot less windy and the showers are predicted to die away overnight.

I'm planning to go out at 7:00 to 7:10 miling and try to hold that. I want to run strong throughout, without 'going to the well' - too near Dublin for that. While it's a 15 Mile race, a key point for me is the Half-Marathon mark.

I intend using my Half-marathon time as a strong guide for my pace/time in Dublin, using the 'Rule of Thumb' of double your half time, plus 10 min. (my best marathon performance was double my half + 4 mins.) 7:00 miling would give me a Half-Mar time of 91:46 and a predicted Marathon time of 3:13:33, while 7:10 comes out as 93:57 for the Half and 3:17:54 for the Marathon. We'll see! Its pretty ambitious, but you never know 'till the day.

My first Marathon was Cork 1985, in 4:10:03 and my last, and slowest, apart from the first, was 3:13:28. I'd love to better that on October 25th. This will be my 20th Marathon.

Mossie Shanahan, a member of the 'C Team - Cancer Survivors' relay team is also running tomorrow.

Don't forget my Cancer charities:

Cork ARC and the Irish Cancer Society

My fundraising pages are here:

Cork ARC
Irish Cancer Society