Saturday morning was the designated 4M slow warm-up jog in preparation for the Sunday run and following a rest day on Friday. Plotting a loop online during the week I took to the frosty streets. The route I chose was hilly to say the least, thinking back now I don’t remember more than 200m that was flat, however this did not come as a suprise as I had done stretches of the route before. Easy 4m under the recommended time, perfect!

Sunday was billed in the diary as the first ‘race’. Having not been able to find an organised run to enter at the required distance (10km) I realised I would have to do it alone. I was also very aware of how quickly I was supposed to do it and wasn’t overly confident of my own ability to meet the target of sub 47mins. During the last summer I ran the British 10k in 46mins so know I can do it, however it wasn’t to be the case on Sunday.
» Continue reading “W4 D4 & D5 – Gentle jog and ‘Race’ day”

According to today’s schedule I was set to cover 5Miles with 3 of them at a fast pace. As I’m not very good at doing fast sessions on my own on the road I once again headed to the treadmill. I think soon I need to try upping the pace on the road so I know that I can close to doing what I do in the gym.

The schedule required the 3M to be covered at approx 8:15/M as I write this blog my brain has kicked in and I’m starting to wonder whether I actually ran fast enough (I hope I did). I set off at 15km/h and throughout the 4.6km I did not drop below 14km/h. Was that fast enough? (Goes off to get paper and do maths…) Oh good, as expected, much faster than the required 12km/h – good good I guess that makes sense as RW define it as ‘brisk’ hopefully my changing it to a fast isn’t an issue!

That’s my 3 midweek runs done, at the weekend I have a slow jog in prep for a ‘race’ style event. Apparently by now I should be able to do a sub 47min 10k and tomorrow I will plot out my route and give it a whirl. I think this is going to be ambitious but who knows, I think in the summer I got a 10k to sub 46 so I know I can do it, it is just whether my body is ready for it yet. That said, I have booked in a session to see Chris at the Sports Clinic on Saturday which should hopefully see away the last knots and twinges I have in my leg from skiing!

Till next time…

Looking back through my schedule this is my first ‘reasonable’ distance midweek run as for various reasons I have missed others. Much like the Sunday runs this was to be a slow run to help put miles in the leg banks at 8Miles. In order to make the most of my evening and laze around the tv I decided this distance could be covered before work without impacting my day.

As I did a number of pre-work runs last year I know and am familiar with a number of routes into central London and also into work. The run from home to work, from memory, was at it’s shortest about 15M so obv this route was to far. However, armed with my oyster card and the knowledge I had a spare set of clothes in the office, I set off from Woodford at 730ish aiming to get to Ox Circus and do the remainder of the journey on the tube.

The battery on my watch died I believe about 1/2mile from the end hence I think the route was about 11ish miles. The schedule listed an 8M/80min timeline which I easily matched and continued to run at a fast enough pace after that point to ensure even at 11M I was still running my miles under 10min. The run actually went pretty well, I was happy at the end especially as when the alarm went off this morning I was close to not bothering as felt a bit tired as well having odd pains in my legs! It just goes to show sometimes it’s worth getting out and trying as after about 1/2M things seemed really good!

Tomorrow sees a fast run session in the gym, again only a short session but it’s about maintaining a speed for a longer period of time than typically found on interval training.

Till then…

N

Getting back into the schedule was of utmost importance to me, I figured I could miss a week and catchup quite easily especially as the mileage was below what my body was capable of. with that in mind, an early drive to the tube saw me in the gym by 8 and onto the dreadmills.

The schedule has me doing:
1M jog
5* 800me fast (4min) w 200me recovery
1M jog warm down

I followed this mileage schedule although the speed may have been faster than requested – that said the session felt considerably more difficult than the W2 sessions, my quads where a bit tight which I can only assume is a consequence of the skiing and lack of running for a week!

Regardless of the pains experienced I completed the session as hoped. As an aside it appears that buffets in hotels are not good for weight loss put it this way, I thought that being on my skis for several hours a day would help with weight stability. Judging from the scales today am this appears to be far from the truth!

Till weds longer run…

N