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.
Key: E=Easy Pace | F=Fartlek | H=Hills | I=Intervals | L=Long Run | M=Marathon Pace | T=Tempo Pace
| BLOCK 1 | WEEK 4 | Morning | Lunchtime | Evening |
| Sunday | L 15.0 miles | ||
| Monday | E 4.0 miles | E 6.5 miles | |
| Tuesday | E 3.0 miles | E 3.0 miles | |
| Wednesday | E 4.0 miles | E 6.5 miles | |
| Thursday | E 3.0 miles | L 11.0 miles | |
| Friday | |||
| Saturday | H 6.0 miles |
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
Wow! Today’s run was wonderful. Somehow weird how frequently this happens, but I barely slept last night – was still awake as the sun came up, I guess around 4:30 – 4:45. Spent the morning gardening, which given the length of our grass and the height and bushiness of the hedges, was quite tiring. We then headed over to my mother’s to walk the dogs and got home around 4:30pm.
Headed out for my usual 11 miler and felt very comfortable. I’m aware that I’m still running too fast (given the heart rate zone), but it was comfortable at this pace. I rectified the mistake I’d made on Thursday and took a 33cl bottle of water with me, just to wet the mouth more than anything. I think it made a difference. I didn’t fade towards the end and, though I could have run another couple of miles, in truth this was well measured and felt spot on for a training run.
A quick bath and I’m ready for another. Roll on tomorrow. Hope I feel this great!!
11m | 1:39:18 | 9:07 | 161bpm | Marathon Pace | 82.6kg
11m | 1:47:14 | 9:49 | 155bpm
Normally I’d be a bit embarrassed about posting times like this, but I set out today with one target. To nail 153bpm. I failed (but only just) and the run felt blissfully comfortable – as it should since I was practically walking!
Was a lovely day, perhaps a little too warm for the top I was wearing, but it makes carrying the iPod so much easier.
4m | 34:51 | 8:41 | 159bpm
Still running very slowly – well barely running at all really. More of a moderate shuffle along the pavements of Cheshire. Anyway, I need to be patient. Regaining fitness after being granted freedom of the city of Slothville is going to take a little time. Maybe some earlier nights would help.
If the weather brightens up a little, I might get myself around Lyme Park with the hound later today, but at the moment it’s raining again (ah, good old Manchester weather).
11m | 1:40:14 | 9:10 | 159bpm
This felt much more comfortable than my heart rate implies (quite elevated for what should be a long Sunday run). I should be running at about 8:30 pace and around 151bpm for this distance, which shows just how quickly form is lost when you eat too many vegan muffins and do too little exercise!
Time to put things right and pull myself back into shape. Nonetheless, a really enjoyable run in the sunshine and didn’t feel too taxing at all (but then it shouldn’t at 9 plus minutes per mile!).
