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Having uncovered the mystery of my aching feet I switched back to my trusty blue Asics and hit the gym for my final midweek session. After 3 miles on the treadmill, 6 miles on the bike, and 6 lengths of the pool I had done my bit without any sign of unexpected fatigue. This weekend…

Street running is a world away for the monotonous trudging on the treadmill, I wonder if my problem yesterday was more treadmill related than trainer related. Tonight’s 5 mile route followed the familiar streets of Naas and it was really nice to be outside again. It started well but very quickly my left foot started…

I have decided to run a marathon mid-year this year to help me get back into training and lose some of this festive bulk. Here are the options: The Cork marathon on June 1st; it is relatively local, familiar and really well organised. I really enjoyed it last year. The Prague marathon on May 10th;…

Languages have never been my forte, I can barely string a coherent sentence together in English never mind French. When travelling abroad I find communication very difficult. Take France, I feel that I have a pretty extensive French vocabulary but more often than not I find that I am unable to use them in the…

That morning I went straight into the office to work until lunchtime and planned on working from home that afternoon. It seems like I spent the entire flight writing this blog and I didn’t get any sleep, consequently I was very tired and when lunchtime arrived I was more than happy to leave. As I…

I was surprised by the lack of traffic chaos around Washington, it felt like a normal weekday afternoon. I dropped the car off in good time and caught the courtesy bus to the Dulles airport departures terminal. I was the only passenger, and as such I had no-one to follow… should I tip the driver?…

I had a fantastic time in Pennsylvania, quality time. Most of it was spent with friends in Harrisburg with a two day trip to Philadelphia to visit family. It wasn’t long before it was time to go, head south to Washington and home. It was also the day of Obama’s inauguration so to avoid the…

I managed to avoid the treadmill during my stay in Dunn Loring and before I got my act together it was time to change. On Tuesday I moved to the Tysons corner district, a little closer to Washington DC. It was working week and had been very busy. I promised myself to be in the…

I arrived in Washington DC yesterday afternoon. The flight was good. I worked most of it until my laptop battery died when I knocked out several chapters of Jupiter’s Travels. The taxi ride to my hotel was entertaining, my driver worked as a salesman for a telecommunications company and drives part-time. He gave me a…

It’s new years day and I have no new years resolutions! I should… Run 100 miles every month Get my weight down to less than 80KG Get on top of my taxes, expenses, etc. Drink less coffee … but I’m making NO promises!

We arrived home from London a little while ago and my running gear never saw the light of day. There’s no excuse, well no good one anyway. There was a great gym and pool attached to the hotel but the holiday was a series of late night and later mornings which left little room for…

This is the day after St. Stephen’s day, it doesn’t have a name of it’s own so we’ll call it Saturday. We have even more company this morning, almost the entire family joined us. We ran a shorter 4.94 in a very leisurely 1.04. Tomorrow I’m leaving for London for a few days and I’m…

Yesterdays run must have been an inspiration because I had plenty of company on my run this morning. We ran 6.71 miles in 1.13. It was another beautiful morning, I can’t think of a better way to start the day… who am I kidding, I can think of plenty of better ways but this is…

We had a semi-family Christmas this year, half of the family got together in my brothers house County Carlow while the other half had other plans. I woke up late on Christmas morning to find everyone, except my eldest brother, had gone out to visit family. I looked out at the vast countryside from the…

This was to be the last race of 2008 and a fantastic race for a great cause. Unfortunately I had a lot of work to do the night before which rendered me pretty useless the next morning. You see I was part of the committee chosen for our know expertise in the type of work.…

It was a cold and frosty morning. I mean really cold and really frosty. So cold and frosty that second thoughts about running 10K were frequent and very convincing but I stuck to the plan lined up with the rest of the shivering masses before the start line. I planned to arrive at the starting…

Word on the Facebook street is that Monica ran her 7th marathon last weekend… it reminded me that I haven’t done any serious running since the Dublin marathon, that’s bad… really bad! Well done Monica, as usual I’m playing catch up!!

I couldn’t sleep last night, it was so bad that I got up a 1am to clean the kitchen. After emptying the dishwasher (what did we do before dishwashers?), filling the dishwasher (I love it), sweeping the floor, and a host of other kitchen related tasks I went back to bed to try to get…

It’s been a fantastic weekend. Lots of food and drink and family buzzing around. The excitement is starting to grow as the big day approaches. On Saturday we journeyed into the city to visit the marathon expo to pickup our goodie bags and numbers. I had run out of energy gels a week ago and…

All, don’t forget I’m doing this marathon for the Children’s Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin!! Follow this link do your bit: https://www.cmrf.org/sponsorshipManager/Usr_EventDonation.asp?EventId=206 MANY, MANY, THANKS!!