There's no denying that last week's training went well, and I really needed that.
Last week was a lower mileage week because I was meant to race at the weekend. Although I didn't ultimately race I still think that worked well. I'm setting myself a mileage range rather than a fixed mileage at the moment. I have certain "key" sessions I want to get done in a week, but around that it's flexible. I'm finding that leaving the exact details of some runs down to my on the day judgment of my form versus fatigue levels takes the pressure off. I have my "key" workouts but some of my plan is flexible. I know some people would find this hard but I think at the moment I'm doing a good job of judging when I'm good tired and when I'm bad tired and adjusting my workouts accordingly.
Last week the plan was lower mileage at around 40 to 50 miles with my expectation being it would be at the lower end. I wanted a good uphill speed session, something steady and hilly, a couple of days rest and a strong race on Sunday.
The race didn't happen as I had family commitments come up which I didn't begrudge at all, but which neccessitated a change of plans. The hill speed session went remarkably well given it was done two days after my long run. My legs bounced back faster than I expected and I almost enjoyed it and followed it up with a heavy weights session in the gym. The day after that I had planned to do a recovery run but my legs were shot and I realised it was pointless going far. I ditched my planned run and did a few miles very slowly on nice soft ground on the park with my pupster. Totally chilled and nothing more than warming my legs up enough to then do some mobility and stretching. The day after things were looking much better again, legs were recovering, so I headed out and did a slightly longer slightly quicker run to get moving.
In the absence of the race and knowing I'd need to run very early Saturday and Sunday I decided to do a 10 mile tempo run on Saturday morning. I'd expected to run around 7:30s and to struggle. Actually it just flowed. I've not run hard on flat tarmac for a while, I left the backpack I've been forcing myself to get used to carrying at home, put on my nice light road shoes, and just ran. I ended up running 10 miles at 7:15, with a level of comfort I hadn't expected. It was a hard run, but it was only the last couple of miles that I started to feel I really had to work to maintain pace. A few extra miles at parkrun to loosen up before I sat in a car for an hour and a half, and Saturday was about a well over 14 miles day, and I felt great. I've not really felt that buzz of a good training run to that extent for a while. I love that feeling of having run hard but not utterly wiped myself out as I may do in a race.
I'd expected to really struggle on Sunday's long slow plod, 16 miles ish to make up to a 30 mile weekend and a 50 mile week. I had it in my head that I'd cut it short if it felt sensible. I had an utterly terrible night's sleep on Saturday which is awful for recovery, and in order to fit my run in before heading down to Birmingham for the day I had to get up at 5:30am to do it. I felt like shit. Add in some nice tasty abdominal cramping which somehow was getting right down into my quads and it's fair to say when I set off out to meet my friend I was not feeling it, not feeling it at all.
Three miles later the cramping was starting to ease, and I realised that actually my legs were tired but not sore from the the previous day's hard run, and I started to get into it. The miles went by quickly, I wasn't checking my watch and when I did check after a mile beep and it told me we'd done 9 miles I was surprised. It was flying by, I was enjoying the route, enjoying the surroundings, it was even starting to get light enough to see the surroundings! Up and down, up and down, a route that was probably not hilly but definitely on the upper end of undulating, and my legs were just doing their thing. I felt strong.
Last week was a lower mileage week because I was meant to race at the weekend. Although I didn't ultimately race I still think that worked well. I'm setting myself a mileage range rather than a fixed mileage at the moment. I have certain "key" sessions I want to get done in a week, but around that it's flexible. I'm finding that leaving the exact details of some runs down to my on the day judgment of my form versus fatigue levels takes the pressure off. I have my "key" workouts but some of my plan is flexible. I know some people would find this hard but I think at the moment I'm doing a good job of judging when I'm good tired and when I'm bad tired and adjusting my workouts accordingly.
Last week the plan was lower mileage at around 40 to 50 miles with my expectation being it would be at the lower end. I wanted a good uphill speed session, something steady and hilly, a couple of days rest and a strong race on Sunday.
The race didn't happen as I had family commitments come up which I didn't begrudge at all, but which neccessitated a change of plans. The hill speed session went remarkably well given it was done two days after my long run. My legs bounced back faster than I expected and I almost enjoyed it and followed it up with a heavy weights session in the gym. The day after that I had planned to do a recovery run but my legs were shot and I realised it was pointless going far. I ditched my planned run and did a few miles very slowly on nice soft ground on the park with my pupster. Totally chilled and nothing more than warming my legs up enough to then do some mobility and stretching. The day after things were looking much better again, legs were recovering, so I headed out and did a slightly longer slightly quicker run to get moving.
In the absence of the race and knowing I'd need to run very early Saturday and Sunday I decided to do a 10 mile tempo run on Saturday morning. I'd expected to run around 7:30s and to struggle. Actually it just flowed. I've not run hard on flat tarmac for a while, I left the backpack I've been forcing myself to get used to carrying at home, put on my nice light road shoes, and just ran. I ended up running 10 miles at 7:15, with a level of comfort I hadn't expected. It was a hard run, but it was only the last couple of miles that I started to feel I really had to work to maintain pace. A few extra miles at parkrun to loosen up before I sat in a car for an hour and a half, and Saturday was about a well over 14 miles day, and I felt great. I've not really felt that buzz of a good training run to that extent for a while. I love that feeling of having run hard but not utterly wiped myself out as I may do in a race.
I'd expected to really struggle on Sunday's long slow plod, 16 miles ish to make up to a 30 mile weekend and a 50 mile week. I had it in my head that I'd cut it short if it felt sensible. I had an utterly terrible night's sleep on Saturday which is awful for recovery, and in order to fit my run in before heading down to Birmingham for the day I had to get up at 5:30am to do it. I felt like shit. Add in some nice tasty abdominal cramping which somehow was getting right down into my quads and it's fair to say when I set off out to meet my friend I was not feeling it, not feeling it at all.
Three miles later the cramping was starting to ease, and I realised that actually my legs were tired but not sore from the the previous day's hard run, and I started to get into it. The miles went by quickly, I wasn't checking my watch and when I did check after a mile beep and it told me we'd done 9 miles I was surprised. It was flying by, I was enjoying the route, enjoying the surroundings, it was even starting to get light enough to see the surroundings! Up and down, up and down, a route that was probably not hilly but definitely on the upper end of undulating, and my legs were just doing their thing. I felt strong.
The weekend's running really did give me some confidence that the training I'm doing is getting results. I'm not as quick as I used to be, I do need a race or two to really test myself and I have a couple coming up, but I'm getting quicker again despite so much of my running being really quite slow. Volume with a bit of quality appears to be gaining me something at least.
I'm trying to hang on to that feeling as I head into the coming week which is designed push me in a different way. No snappy bouncy road running, or short intervals, this week is about strength and endurance and digging in when I'm knackered. There's hills, more hills, strength work, distance, and yep, more hills. The only "quick" running I have in there is a parkrun. My target for the next week is 55-65 miles. I'd like to be near the higher end of that if I can but I've some flexibility to cut a couple of the midweek runs if I need to in order to be able to do the weekend workouts which will be demanding back to back.
I'm excited about training again, and starting to feel like I could get back to my "old self" at some point. The more I feel like that the higher my motivation to push myself on runs. I will try and bear that in mind when I'm back at the scene of a previous horror tomorrow; Bramcote Hills, I am coming to get you!
 |
| 5:30am me mutters "sleep is for the weak" a few times before heading out to do long run on less than 2 hours of the stuff. |
No comments:
Post a Comment