unironedman

I am sitting in the kitchen with the laptop open and the radio on. One of the guests on the chat show just reminded me and the other listeners that we were ‘going forward’. It irked me that much that I had to turn off the radio. Look, it’s a tad churlish, I know, but physics demands that we are all ‘going forward’, no matter what. There’s no reverse gear on this thing. It just happened to coincide with me starting this week’s blog post, and I was casting around for a title. So, here were are. Going forward. So to speak. Tautologically.

The week was going forward. No surprise there, I suppose. Tuesday followed Monday, and so forth. I had a busy week in work, and whilst I kept to my five early-rising home gym sessions, I only managed four runs. Tuesday was a 7k tempo run at 5:15 pace, and the following day, Mark and I managed about 6.5k in the park. Great to catch up.

I took Thursday and Friday off, and got back to it again on Saturday morning, with one of my famous (really? ed.) progressive tempo runs. For those not really into running, this has been described thus: A progressive tempo run is a workout where you start at a slower, comfortable pace and gradually increase your speed as the run continues, finishing at or near your lactate threshold. And who can argue with that? 13k in all, and I was happy with the pace at the end, getting five of the later kilometres in under 5 minute pace, with the fastest at 4:19.

Sunday morning’s early run with Gary required about 24k to allow me to hit my 50k target for the week. Yesterday’s tempo run, whilst a good return, was very much still in the legs, so the long run was a bit of a slog.

We left from my house and picked up the Royal Canal at Confey, then trundled along as far as Matt Goff Bridge near my place of work, where we left the canal and passed by Kilmacredock to pick up the link road towards the M4 and the entrance into Castletown Demesne. Still plenty of folk out enjoying the morning. On through Celbridge village main street, over the Liffey and on towards Hazelhatch. Here we joined the Grand Canal and meandered eastwards towards Lucan. Left turn at Hayden’s Lane and on past Griffeen Park where Gary has clocked up most of his 450 or so parkruns. Then into Lucan village and over the Liffey once more before tackling the climb at Laraghcon. Home stretch now, as you soon enter the park and you know you can soon stop all this running madness. We were both feeling sluggish but made sure we finished the route as planned.

No winner’s badge for me this week, though, as both Gary and JC are a good bit ahead. But as I pointed out, the 50k figure is a target, and for my money, a target is something you are supposed to get close to, and as I finished on about 50.8k, I was by far the closest to the target this week. So I have declared myself the de-facto winner. No further questions…

Saoirse lost her Dad this time last year, and her brothers and sister are all over at the family home this weekend, and we had a mass said yesterday in his parish church, with a nice meal afterwards, and a chance to catch up with everyone.

Later that evening, Katie Taylor won her last fight in front of 83,000 spectators in Croke Park in Dublin. The last boxer to fight here was Muhammad Ali in 1972. Quite the occasion.

Going forward, there will hopefully be more training. Almost certainly there will be more work too, of course. And other stuff. There’s always other stuff. Going forward. Such is the way. Until there is no more going forward. Unless you believe that beyond death, there is more ‘going forward’. I don’t, as it happens. I read something online recently which basically went along the lines of how people describe paradise as this lush place with clear streams, verdant forests and glades, an abundance of wild animals and plants and peace and love, etc. – I am paraphrasing here – but when you point out that we could have all these here on earth, they get mad and call you some sort of lefty, tree-hugging lunatic for wanting such things.

Wendell Berry has gone through the dark doorway. The American poet and author (and so much more) died last week, so I am robbing a couple of his poems. I would like more Wendells in the world, please, and less of the kind of people who populate talk shows with weasel-words about how we must increase our defence spending to fight the Russians (going forward), when we can’t even pay our squaddies a living wage, or retain air corps pilots when they’ve finished their training.

Six weeks to Abingdon, apparently.