Having taken yesterday as a well earned rest day (I even skipped spinning!) today I was hoping to be back in full form and legs fully recovered.

Finding only time for a quick lunchtime treadmill session I queued up my ok go interval track and did 30mins covering over 6km. Slightly short on the recommended amount for today but I’m sure that’s not to much of an issue. The bigger problem I had today was a mental one. Once again my brain was questioning what I’m doing but that could just be because it was on a treadmill and following a busy running week last week!

One other thing which I have decided today after opening my gym bag, sadly one of my pairs of trainers will not be held onto for anecdotal purposes as they absolutely stink!!! I put that down to this season being a very wet one and having done a substantial number of puddle running, it’s a shame web scratch and sniff doesn’t exist – although I’d question anyone that actually scratched!!

9miles scheduled for the morning which I will hopefully do early on a local loop. Till then.

N

The schedule has me doing an 8mile quick(ish) and and 9mile steady. In typical fashion I loosely followed this, I managed a 7 mile lunchtime run on weds at a fast pace. The garmin tracked the run at 8min mile av, however, that did incorporate a 1mile downhill which had I did in 7:40, clearly faster than normal and I could expect on a flat! No issues with the run, short and sweet which is the way I like it

Thurs morn was listed as a 9miler which I decided to do as a morn run towards work. Having pre-arranged giving my bag to my dad so the run was from home-ox circus. The run checked in at 11 miles and before starting for some reason I always thought it was going to be less, even though I have already run it a number of time. My run time was good, was deliberately trying to slow my pace down to race pace but was still up on that. Think I averaged 8:36 (race pace is looking to be sub 9). Calves felt a little tight at the end and on the whole my body fealt a bit tired but all good miles and it wasn’t a race!

Think on Saturdays long run I’m going to look at the heart rate function of my watch and set it to force me to run based on that as it may slow me down a bit, will spend some time looking at my garmin data to work out a race pace heart rate. Need to invest some time pacing myself and ensuring I don’t end up overdoing the first half.

As I just said, Saturday marks an 18miler, shifted from the normal Sunday run this is because for some reason I decided to enter the ‘Newham 10k’. It turns out this is completely unhelpful for my schedule but it’s local and I get to see and run round the 2012 Olympic Park which should be cool. Don’t intend on coming close to my pb on that as it is really going to be a recovery run following Saturdays long slow run.

Rest day tomorrow, wooo

N

Wednesday was to mark my first run with a combined work group for some while. It was nice to get out with the chaps as it provides a nice break from solo running, accompanying me on my run was Ad, Dan and Darren. The pace was to be quite slow which I was happy with there was chatter of 930 pace before leaving and I was down to run just short of 6M which was perfect for my schedule. Following a relatively slow start the pace soon crept up and I think by the end we were running a 9:10 ish average, which, following Tuesdays run felt quite refreshing

Thursday morning I met up with another colleague who wanted to do a Fartlek session as it turns out I think we only ended up doing a couple of sprints as he was complaining of calve issues so we slowed the pace to a 9:10 ish and ran the remaining mile or so slow. Possibly not the most helpful session to my training today but it was still some more leg miles in the bank. I did miss out on my hill session this week which isn’t ideal but nevermind – can’t have everything and to run with company is so much more enjoyable.

Rest day tomorrow I believe although may take some kit and do some core work in the gym…may

N

This weekend is possibly one of the first weekends since before Xmas where we had no concrete plans and intended on doing very little, mainly catching up on the hours of stuff we have sitting on the Sky+. This lack of plans made getting out for a run on both days pretty easy…

On Saturday I went out for a 4mile jog with a school mate and his brother. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem for my mate as he is always playing squash, cricket, hockey etc. Evidently, his body is cut out for short sharp sprints with recovery sessions and not longer slower runs. Anyway, 40mins later, I was running with his brother as we had been told to go on by my mate…hope he joins me again before the Mara – in 9 weeks if he wants he could get to half mara distance but 4M will do me Having company made the run fly by and the normal feeling of it being a pointless run didn’t seem to hold true today!

On Sunday I was scheduled to do a 14M run, I didn’t really fancy heading into London so opted for a local course using one of my dads routes as the main chunk of it. Not being in London this route is hilly! Heading into Loughton I started to make my way towards the roundabout at Epping but the final road aptly named ‘Goldings Hill’ got the better of me and as it was only going to be a turnaround point I stopped halfway and headed back on my way. » Continue reading “W6 D4&5 Warmup and long slow run”

According to the schedule today was a 4M brisk run working out at a pace of ~11.3km/h. I’m not to sure what brisk really means, should I be able to talk? Anyway, treadmill set to my current base rate of 12km/h I ran the 6.4kms without any real issues and suspect I could possibly just hold a conversation at that pace.

Rest day tomorrow which is cool, think I may target the hills for Saturdays short run although plans may change with that and Sundays long run may have to be moved to Sat because of what day it is…

Till next time

N

I’m going to try my best to make weds morning a run to work session. At the moment my long slow run is 14M and I did 13.1 today but stopped a couple of miles short of work.

The run went pretty well, I picked up the pace from normal and came in at 2hours but didn’t feel knackered at the end which is promising, still feel I have a long way to go to drop effectively a minute off a mile but will carry on training and see what happens! Got caught in a snow storm which wasn’t so great but fortunately didn’t last to long! My pace dropped a fair bit at around 7M I’m not sure whether this coincides with hitting busier pavements around London, guess it would make sense but I didn’t feel myself slowing down when I clearly was
» Continue reading “W6 D2 Long run to work…”

Nothing much to report today, didn’t really have time for the full distance before work this morning, managed 7k at 12km/h (on a treadmill of course). Seemed pretty tough today actually but don’t know whether I just didn’t really have my heart in it.

Rest day tomorrow! Wooooo looking forward to a day off, heading for a weekend break with a hotel with a swimming pool which will be nice to use on Sat/Sun where I’m scheduled for a 4M/12M. Hopefully Sunday will be fine based on Wednesdays similar distance run.

Still dubious how I’m going to pick up the pace but hoping that building up the distances helps with the speed!!

Till next time.

N

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”