Hello there, good to see you again. I know, it’s been a while. Who would have thought a blog would be more difficult to maintain wtih a job and 80km+ a week compared to when I was dossing about on the other side of world.
Anyway, with under 8 weeks to go it felt like a good time to revive things, and I figured 50 days makes for a good milestone post, and a bit of an update on how things are going.
Target
The biggest recent change is the updated target! You may notice over on the Berlin page that I’ve gone from €2,500 up to €3,500.
I’m honestly so chuffed to be able to do this, with 85% of the original target reached with 8 weeks to go. So a massive thanks to everyone for their amazing generosity thus far - it really means so much.
Goals
The goal for now is to trust the process and enjoy the journey, as wanky as that might sound.
Later this month I’ve got a half marathon pacer that should give a good indicator of where I’m at. Interestingly, my half marathon PB remains a 1:23 as part of the Galway Bay Marathon in 2021. I also did 1:25 on the track back in March so I’ll hopefully improve on that anyway.
Galway Bay Marathon 2021 , with Blackrock Diving Tower in the background. One of my favourite pics
Training
I intended on doing monthly recap posts but it was hard to maintain, so here’s a bit of a round up.
The story so far
Overall 2026 has been a great year for running. I do wish I had done a bit more long runs in the earlier months, and June was a bit of a wild one, but my dedicated training plan started on the 11th July and the past few weeks have been solid.
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Calendar from Strava. Was building up nicely before the June dip
I even managed to squeeze in an Olympic Triathlon in between, as well as a wonderful wedding weekend in Wexford. With the weather too it has been a good summer.
The Galway City Harrier sessions have been brilliant. Although it was sad to hear the news that Coach Jérôme is stepping down for the foreseeable.
Jérôme took the picture above and coached me to a 2:58 and 2:55 marathon. He’s kindly offered to continue with the Berlin Marathon plan too (more on that below).
The best is yet to come
With 7 full weeks to go I’m really in the thick of it. Some big weeks planend in terms of mileage, and then the pacer towards the end of August.
Think that’s me on the dry now as well until race day. Feeling so much better generally - how annoying.
Week 5 of my training plan - provided by Jérôme
Thanks
That’s it for now, I’ll keep posting these check-ins, and also have to announce my August Race and Challenge.
Thanks again for the donations (and to anyone who has has read this far down the post). Should be a fun (for lack of a better word) few weeks ahead!
DavAI SummAIriser
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