Shorter distance to cover this week (42 miles), but a couple of quality sessions (finally) after the drudgery of running at easy pace for five weeks. I also have to work around business travel, which despite only taking a relatively small chunk out of the week, invariably interferes with my “flow”.

It’s important not to add too many intensive sessions straight away, so I’m sticking to two tempo runs and another Lyme Park hilly run on Saturday. My midweek long run will be tomorrow (not really midweek) and with these dark winter evenings, I’ll miss the early evening park runs with the dog. We’ll make up for it on Saturday, Buffy.

Last week was a complete wash out. Never been so disappointed with my complete lack of commitment to a training schedule! Granted, there were a couple of days where it was less convenient than others, but there was a time when if it meant getting up at 5:30 to make sure the week’s mileage was completed, that was what happened.

I have committed to knocking some serious minutes off the appalling GNR time in September, so it’s time to knuckle down. This week’s mileage target MUST be hit. Thus begins the final week of Block 1. Next week it’s time for some quality.

Last week was a huge disappointment. No lack of effort or intention, just ill health and business travel conspiring against my running schedule. This kind of thing happens and you just have to put it behind you and move on.

This week’s target is 60 miles and, as ever 25% of the weekly mileage needs to be in the form of Sunday’s long run. So today, I psyched myself up for a fifteen miler – albeit at a very comfortable pace. The weather was lovely. A chill in the air (enough to wear gloves and the gimlet) but bright with an occasional appearance from the sun.

This is the penultimate week of 100% slow running and it will be great to add some quality sessions (hills, tempo and fartlek) to the mix the week after next. Tomorrow I’ll download, complete and send my entry for the Brass Monkey 1/2 Marathon in January. That’ll be a good incentive.

Up until Thursday evening, I felt on top of the world. During my long run, I swallowed a fly (common hazard for runners and not very vegan) and since then I’ve been pretty sick. I guess, given the lifestyle habits of a fly, a connection between said ingestion and shaking legs, fever and general uuurggghiness is entirely plausible.

Anyway, the top and bottom of this is that Saturday’s run was cancelled (I was in bed) and right now today’s is looking unlikely. Just as well that this is a step-back week and I’m supposed to be cutting my mileage in half.

The other thing which will impact on the schedule this week is a trip to Brighton and London on Wednesday / Thursday, so I’m trying to work my mileage around those days.

Delighted with the first week’s running. Didn’t quite manage to keep the heart rate at the desired level, but only 5bpm over which isn’t so bad really. Felt very comfortable at 9:40 (and so it should). I think the target for this week is to try to maintain – or perhaps even slightly improve on the average pace – whilst bringing the heart rate down to the 154 target (easy pace).

I’m looking to increase the mileage by 10 per cent this week, before a step back week next week. Step-back weeks will happen every third week. During a step-back week, mileage from the previous week is cut in half before proceeding to the next 10 per cent increase. Here’s the plan for week commencing 4th October.

With seventeen weeks until my next race, I want to bring the much referenced FOCUS to my training, so starting today, I’m embarking on a very prescriptive plan.

BLOCK 1

The next five weeks will be FOUNDATION (base) training. Lots of slow easy pace running with almost no “quality” sessions (hills, tempo, intervals, fartlek). My target is a minimum of 50 miles per week during Block 1 (step-back weeks excepted).

BLOCK 2

This will be followed by a QUALITY phase – six weeks of majority slow running with two or three quality sessions per week. These will be mainly hills and tempo sessions but by weeks five and six of this block, I may look to add one interval session per week.

BLOCK 3

The final block will be QUALITY and TAPER – four more weeks of quality running and a taper down over the last 10-14 days to race day.

So, my plan is to schedule each week on Sunday and add a comment to the post to say whether or not the day’s session(s) have been completed and how they went. The advantage of blogging it this way is that my site doesn’t become too running focused. Only one post per week about running.

All runs to be at EASY PACE (154bpm or lower)

My silly fault. I decided to take up Danny’s challenge yesterday and give him a piggy back up one of the hills in Lyme Park (the gauntlet of “no way Dad” had been thrown down, so what could I do?). That, just before the eleven miler and after Peter’s Hill on Saturday meant my legs were somewhat “shot” today!

It doesn’t matter how many times I intend to do a recovery run, whenever I have a running partner, the pace is always quicker. I’m not assigning any blame here. It just happens. So, instead of 150bpm (easy pace), today’s run was at 161bpm (marathon pace).

But apart from the legs, it felt great and my return to normal breathing at the finish was almost instant. Despite the stats, my body’s telling me that I’m making good progress – and that’s what I’m listening to.

4m | 33:39 | 8:26 | 161bpm | Marathon Pace

Garmin Connect Log

It’s great to be back in the trainers again!

Today was warm for running even though I waited until early evening to get out. I’d planned to run four miles on the road, but with weather like this, Lyme Park couldn’t be avoided so I cut the usual 6 miler in half and enjoyed some hills and spectacular scenery with the dog. I think she appreciated the run even more than I did!

Not quite sure what happened with the Forerunner. Looks as though I didn’t switch it off properly at the end of the run as there’s a straight line from the front door to the start (end?). I’ll discount that and assume that the moving time is correct.

No surprises that today was very slow. The climb up to Peter’s house always destroys any average pace and combined with the warmth and the fact that this was the first time out in three weeks, well….

MotionBased Log

View Larger Map

5.95m | 59:43 | 10:09 | 165bpm

Another lovely afternoon in Lyme Park – really enjoyable (but hard work!). That climb up to Peter’s just doesn’t get any easier. I never pay any attention to pace on this run. The hills are challenge enough, so I’m not concerned about how fast (or slow) I’m running.

I think Lyme Park is one of my favourite places. Get half a mile from the house and car park and it really is a place of tranquility and escapism (and so close to such a huge conurbation of South Manchester.

MotionBased – bad news is that Garmin hasn’t got any better since I last gave up on them. They should have launched Garmin Connect for Forerunner 305 (subscription paying) customers over a year ago and it’s still not live. Worse still, I’ve tried three times today to upload my data and the site keeps kicking me out. (Server overloaded.)