unironedman

To be honest, that was just the first thing that popped into my head. I know it’s an old Clint Eastwood film, and I have seen it, many moons ago, but it just happens to have ‘misty’ in the title, and I had a long run this morning, and it was misty. Look, I never promised great intellectual journeys here on unironedman.com, okay? There are refunds at the door…

Earlier in the week, the Fagan Clan had gathered at our house. Saoirse has a sister and two brothers. One of the brothers is in England, and the eldest is in France, so it’s not easy getting them all together under the one roof. As a bonus, her Dad was there too, so we had a good old knees-up. Lots of food, a number of bottles of wine, and plenty of music.

A smaller family event during the week saw the four Kennys plus Aoife (Dallan’s partner) head over to Dublin’s classiest cinema in Rathmines on the southside of town. The cinema is old-school, and has been tastefully renovated in the classic 20s style. Read more here. (The cinema is over 100 years old and has been sympathetically restored to reflect the glitz and glamour of the 1920’s but with a modern, luxurious twist. Ranked 16th in the world’s most beautiful cinemas and no.1 in the best cinemas in the UK and Ireland by TimeOut in 2021). It is pure decadence. We saw Wonka, and it’s most-excellent entertainment. I’ve had it up to the gills with superhero movies, and shoot ’em up thrillers. This is a joy. Bonus feature: Ireland’s Neil Hannon wrote the music, him of Father Ted fame.

I had only managed one shortish run since the Lock Up The Year half-marathon, and that was a muddy tramp through trails in the local woods near the river. We have had a lot of rain recently, and everywhere is showing the effects. So I decided it was time to make peace with my Saucony Peregrines, which are highly-recommended trail running shoes. They are a lovely shoe, and one I had earmarked for the Wicklow Way last year. But when I finally donned them halfway through the experience, they gave me nasty blisters on my heels. I fear I may have judged them harshly. In fairness, my feet had been given a good soaking for many hours beforehand, and then the combination of water and many miles of attrition would have made the skin a little delicate. So perhaps I unfairly heaped blame on them.

They wouldn’t have given me much trouble with a 5k, but a stiffer test would see me take them out again, this time along the gnarly towpath and into the heart of the Deep Sinking. So this Sunday, I set off into the mist with my Peregrines on, to see if we could be friends again.

Above are a selection of images from the morning. You can click to enlarge and scroll through, if you want to see a little detail. That spooky old house was a school, I believe. It would make a superb setting for a haunted house film. More likely, it will get the hammer one day, and be replaced with some apartments.

Underfoot was quite the trial, but that was the plan; give those Peregrines something to get their teeth into. And they didn’t disappoint. I wasn’t going any great pace, and several photo opportunities meant I stopped quite often. But I hit the aqueduct about five minutes over the hour mark before turning for home. Often, when I reach this point, I toddle on down to the next lock, and pick up those extra few yards I need to turn an exact 20k run into a bona fide half-marathon. But today I was happy with the distance, and as I made my way west again, I wondered if I could get a negative split (that is, to do the return leg, or second-half, of any run faster than the first half). I did manage it in the end, though ‘fast’ would be something of a misnomer. But I think I knocked about 5 minutes off the projected time had I returned at the same pace as I went out. Marginal gains, I believe.

(This was the famous phrase from David Brailsford (He developed a ‘marginal gains’ philosophy for British Cycling. In 2012 he explained: “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.” 29 Dec 2023). He has rather dirtied his bib since then, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped him, and indeed, he has been recently linked with a move to coaching at Manchester United Football Club, as part of the Ineos takeover. What this means remains to be seen, and it has no bearing on us here, dear Reader. But let’s see, shall we? There’s nothing wrong with a few marginal gains, of course, but they are largely meaningless when you are cycling at about 30km/h, or, perhaps, running 6 minute kilometres. Insert suitable smiley face here!)

And now some trivia, featuring animals and funnies from the interweb…

P.S.: I wasn’t going to mention this, but I just got a follow today from the legendary Camille Herron on Twitter (yes, I still call it Twitter). This makes me something of a drooling fanboy but hey, in the world of ultrarunning, Camille is out of this world phenomenal. So. My secret is out. What can I say… 🙂