My first hill race will be tomorrow evenning – the infamous Hellfire is on the list.

as the IMRA runs races every wednesday im up to join the 6k with 260 metres of climbing.

looking forward to that one.

decent jogging today in the belfast marathon. as written earlier on i was lucky (?) enough to run 3 stages in the relay competition.

the race started of at the city hall and made its way out of the city. i paced my colleague on the first 6 miles. he was running for a team and i was starting off for another. it was his first running experience. we went out easy and he did a class job on his first run.

the second leg was interesting as the route went through the famous falls and shankill roads. the 3,8 miles were flying by and i reached the 2nd changeover point quickly.

i met some colleagues but had to wait pretty long for the next runner of my 3rd team. eventually she came along after 30 minutes and i carried on. 7.1 miles was the 3rd stage and it was a pretty tough one as it went uphill for 70%. it was the toughest part of the course. the waiting cooled me down so i started of fast to get a bit of heat back into my “machine”. i really liked the hilly route so i tried to hold that speed. i cruised through the field and handed over to another runner just a couple of minutes later.

after that the route was just flat back into town and to the finish line. we drove that way with the bus.

nice event up there. the relay was fun. a good workout for me.

as my company entered several teams for this mondays belfast marathon relay competition there is always the same old problem. people are injured or booked holidays “by accident” = free spots.

finally i end up running 3 legs for 3 teams – long run for monday sorted so.

the weather should be still nice so its good fun to run the streets of belfast togehter with several thousand people.

The picture tells the story! tough day for me at the RTE (Radio Telefís Éireann) 5 miler (for the kilometer heads: 5 miles = 8.04672 kilometers) in dublin.

i arrived pretty late at the race site at the RTE company area. registered and got changed in seconds and warmed up on the way to the start. the start signal sounded and the fight began for me. my legs were everything but NOT fresh. i couldnt stay with the leader so i just hang in. got the head down and fought my way through the 5 miles. the race took place on a 4 lap course through donnybrook and the RTE area.

Everytime i passed my car i was thinking of dropping out. but i kept going and fought on. that would have been the positive output of that race.

i came in with a 28:47 time. just by seconds the same time i was clocking earlier this year in raheny over the same distance. but races like this are just part of my “get races – get faster” programm.

i cooled down with an easy jog and enjoyed the great food and the nice ceremony at the RTE sports club. really well organised race and great weather. more of that combination please!

i´m always up for new shoes, so a visit at the nike outlet yesterday was surprisingly successful. Nike Air Span+ 5 was the choice this time.

I was searching for a training shoe with good support but not too heavy. Suitable for light (not fast) workouts.

After all the price was right and they felt very good when i tried them on in the store. Today i gave the shoes the first test on my recovery run. Amazing feeling i have to say. I didnt expect much but they feel great. The support is brilliant – very soft but still at an acceptable level. Its a very simple but effective shoe.

Looking forward to run the span´s in long distance workouts in the near future.

first time on the track this year.

together with my training partner markus (former 400 hurdler for germany) i started the track season with the first workout.

it doesn´t sound dangerous but it was tough – for me anyway.

15′ warmup
stretching
technique training
4 x 100m progressions
4 x 100m fast
4 x 200m fast
2 x 400m fast
10′ cool down

as always the first workouts on the track are hard. i need to get a constancy in that workouts – they really help.

i´m slightly (very very slightly…) increasing the weekly mileage.

got a longer one (23k) in on wednesday and never went out longer than one hour in general. im mainly cruising on easy speed. also i allowed myself two days off. luxury?

this week i’ll add the first fast sessions on the track and im looking forward to the BHAA RTE RR 5mile this saturday in donnybrook, dublin.

all good so far (instead of the weather…)

Boom! shake-shake-shake the room
Tic-tic-tic-tic boom!

the boys are absolutely going bananans in london.

unbelievable…

man of the match for me: hendrik ramaala