In memory of Ian McKeever.

Give me Shelter by Luan Parle.

Benbaun, Galway June 2006.

Strong Irish Team for World 100k, 2012.

Pictured: Dan Doherty, Irish 100km Team Captain

Ireland will send a very strong team to the European & World 100km Championships in Italy on 22nd April.

The men's team will be captained by Daniel Doherty, who finished 14th in the 2011 World Championships.

Doherty, along with Irish 50km Champion John Byrne and Irish 100km record holder Thomas Maguire make up a trio of Irish runners with sub-7:10hr PBs.

The team, which also includes Keith Whyte (sub 7:30hrs), Michael Collins (World veteran bronze medallist) and John O'Regan (Irish 24-Hour Champion) will be among the favourites to medal in Europe. The cumulative time of the top three finishers for each nation decides the outccome of the team competiion.

In addition to the team, Jim McCormick will represent Ireland as an individual and should be among the top contenders in the vets competition (which is run concurrently).

In the women's race, Ireland will be represented by Helen Lavin, who has recently posted some very good ultra performances in the USA.

IRISH MEN'S TEAM
John Byrne
Michael Collins
Daniel Doherty
Thomas Maguire
John O'Regan
Keith Whyte
Jim McCormick*

IRISH WOMEN'S TEAM
Helen Lavin*

*Individuals

A mixed week.

With Jim McCormick.

It's been 3 weeks since the Donadea 50K and following the training principle of stress / recover / adapt I've started to increase my training volume ever so slightly without doing too much as it's almost time to peak and taper yet again.  My Gym sessions were the same but different in that I'm doing the same exercises but with less weight and more reps.  This I'm told is to work on my muscle endurance  following on from strengthening these same muscles.
On Friday I met with Jim McCormick and we had planned on running a 65K long run but a strong headwind for the first 20K slowed our pace significantly and we ran out of time at 58K.  Slightly shorter than planned but finishing and knowing that you can keep going is a good confidence boost.

Today I took part in a charity relay run from Lurgan to Croke Park with St Paul's GFC, I joined the team somewhere on the old Belfast road and ran a few legs towards the city centre at a mixed pace which was a perfect end to the week.

Next week I'm running a 10K for my club in the Kildare Road Race Championships and I'm now trying to work out how I can tweak my training to include even a small bit of speed work.

Donadea 50K & Irish Championships 2012.

My plan for today was to run an even paced race and finish in just under 3hrs30 and it was almost spot on.  My splits were fairly consistent with a slight changing of pace which was heart rate related and was usually caused by the change in terrain.  I went through a tough patch towards the end of lap 6 but soon came round after picking up a drink and by the end of lap 7 I was back in business.  The Marathon split  came in 2:55:50 and although I knew 3:30 was still possible I also knew my pace was dropping on the few climbs.  With less than 2K to go I thought the 3:30 was gone and subconsciously eased back and it was only on the final approach to the finish line that I realise I was still on schedule but noticed it too late and even my attempt at a sprint finish was too little and too late.  I crossed the line in 7th place with a time of 3:30:02 which was a second behind my training partner Jim McCormick.  Not a bad result and all in all I'm very happy with how the day went.
The Donadea 50K was a very enjoyable race and it was great to meet up and run on home soil with my Ultra Running Ireland Team Mates. I'm almost looking forward to running it again next year.

 I went into this race untapered and will use the training effect to move onto my next race.
Heart Rate Average = 148bpm.  It spiked slightly towards the end which accounts for the measurement error of 17%.