Wednesday, August 30, 2006

New Beginnings

Well, I'm back into the swing of things, and life is all about New Beginnings.

From a running perspective, my vacation was a BIG break. I had good intentions when I left Ireland for those shores of Americay, but like all good intentions they fell by the wayside, as the wedding and the partying took over. So it was off to the gym yesterday and a session to loosen out muscles that had been granted two weeks rest, and a run on the treadmill to see how bad things were.

The Dublin Marathon is on October 30th, less than 9 weeks away, and any thoughts I might have had of running anywhere near 3:35 can safely be put away. I will be very happy to get around the course in one piece after the "relaxed" summer I have had. I am somewhat mad at myself for allowing the good work of the early part of the year to go to seed, but I guess that at my advancing years (surely not?), I can allow myself to enjoy running and enjoy living as well, so maybe not all bad.

Anyway, the gym session was far tougher than I had thought. Two weeks off, and 5lbs on, it is going to take a week to get back to a quarter repectability. Well, I finished off the session with a 3K run on the treadmill, not exactly Marathon preparation, and I ran a hard 14:49. When I say hard, I mean it was hard to run that pace (7:57 p/mile). In May I was running sub 7 pace for this kind of distance as a speed session, yesterday it was hard work to maintain the pace period!

Still, hard work can see me back on that road, and hard work will be needed as my other New Beginning is about to take place.

Many months ago I was interviewed for a new job. At present I work in the Public Sector, for a local authority, I guess the American equivalent would be the State. Well, finaly I have been appointed to work for the National Government (The Federal Authorities in US parlance), and I will be leaving my present post at the end of September. It's a mixed feeling. I actually really enjoy the job I am presently doing, and whilst the new job will pay significantly more, my role is not yet clearly defined. Still, the opportunities in my present job to go forward are severely limited, so I cannot afford to hang around and hope.

So New Beginnings with work, and the same with my running. Lets hope they are both successful.

5 comments:

Pepp said...

Hey Liam,

Like the Blog. Will follow it keenly as I am doing the big one this october myself. Check out my blog... http://www.dublinmarathonvirgin.blogspot.com/

Good luck with the training... a bit harder now that it is not as nice outside!!

Jack said...

Welcome back and congratulations on the new job.

DawnB said...

Liam, its good to have you back. Sound like you had a wonderful vacation, welcome home, You'll be back with the training before you know it and congratulations with the new job

Anonymous said...

Don't be too hard on yourself: running is supposed to fit into your life, rather than trying to fit your life around running. I'm glad you had such a great time on these shores!

Congratulations on the new job. Hope you really enjoy it.

Thomas said...

You're working for the government now? Any tax cuts that you could make come my way, maybe?