Marathon Time

October 25, 2018November 23, 2021 JP

It takes about 16 weeks of training and about 500 miles to train well for a marathon. Depending on your goals, this could be a lot more or slightly less but this is an average of what it takes to run a marathon and run it well and even, dare I say it, enjoy it.

This weekend I am tackling my third marathon in Dublin, Ireland. My training for this one has been less than perfect with lots of life getting in the way of the perfectly written training plan but it was a great reminder to me that the plan is just that – it’s a written down target of things that you want to make happen.

The Big M: Momentum

October 18, 2018November 23, 2021 JP

As most of you know, I am getting ready to take on the Dublin Marathon at the end of this month. This will be my 3rd marathon in 3 years. This will also be my last marathon for a while but I’ll leave that to another post. In terms of training, I am at the peak point in the running schedule now, and yesterday myself and my training partner completed the mighty 21-mile run. In terms of my training plan, this is the tip of how far I run in training. The morning yesterday was awful, hard rain from the very start at 9am and it never stopped. We trained in Kilbogget park if anyone knows it, in south Dublin. It is a luxury to have this park on my doorstep as it’s circumference is 3 miles long so yesterday, we lapped this park 7 times to give us the 21 miles.

Breaking the Fast

October 11, 2018November 23, 2021 JP

Breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen and dinner like a pauper. Not quite right but you get the drift. How many of us actually live by this principle? I was thinking about this recently when I decided to mix it up from my usual staple of porridge oats and various toppings. I got this bee pollen from WholeFoods in a recent trip stateside, it’s a really good quality one.

My morning routine now looks like this…

Going Back to College

October 4, 2018November 23, 2021 JP1 Comment

In July of 2016, I got redundancy from a software job I was working at the time. This was the first time, in my 17 years working that I have actually been made redundant from a job. I have been in plenty of companies where they had rounds upon rounds of redundancies but it just never involved me. So anyway, it was my turn so off I went with a miserable severance and a big smile on my face. I actually liked the job so it was a pity but it was due to circumstances beyond my control and the redundancies were wide and deep. So in the end, I decided I would deliberately take 4 months off. The job market was and still is good here in Dublin so I wasn’t worried about picking up another job but I was worried about finding a good job.

Anyway, long story short, this was when I decided to run my first marathon and when I started into a Diploma in Health and Nutrition Coaching from IIN.