Following a slightly lighter week last week, this week my mileage was hiked up a bit and will continue to increase for the remainder of the month.
This is what my schedule was telling me to do last week:
Mon 4M (35 mins) easy (8m45s/mile)
Tue 7M of 1M jog, then 5M (or 40 mins) fartlek, then 1M jog
Wed 9M (75 mins) slow (8m20s/mile)
Thu 8M of 1M jog, out and back run -3M steady in 23 (7m40s/mile), then turn, 3M fast in 20 (6m40s/mile), then 1M jog
Fri Rest
Sat 5M (42 mins) easy (8m25s/mile)
Sun 16M (2:15) slow (8m25s/mile)
I am not a Fartlek fan, so opted to do an 800m efforts session on Tuesday instead and make up the miles with a slightly longer Wednesday run. I also found that my resistance training is really paying off as I feel stronger and faster and my natural pace has picked up quite a bit. Anyway, this is what I actually did last week:
Mon 4M (35 mins) easy (8m45s/mile)
Tue: 6M of 1M jog, then 8 x 800m (or 3 mins 6m/mile) fast, with 200m (1-min) jog recoveries, then 1M jog
Wed 10M (80 mins) slow (8m/mile)
Thu 8M of 1M jog, out and back run -3M steady in 23 (7m40s/mile), then turn, 3M fast in 20 (6m40s/mile), then 1M jog
Fri Rest
Sat 5M (42 mins) easy (8m25s/mile)
Sun 16M (2:15) slow (8m/mile)
So I ran just shy of 50 miles last week, and ran a fair bit faster than I was supposed to. I feel buoyed by that and though my legs felt a little tired on this morning’s recovery run, I am ready for a week of upping my mileage some more. Last week I spoke of raising my belief with evidence, and this past week, I gave myself some ready evidence of my improvement. My endurance was never in doubt, I can keep on going forever at a slower pace, I was just not sure how my pace would pick up and it has become notably faster as the year has gone on.
This week sees some hills get introduced into the week’s schedule…..
I am going to start my longer runs from home again as that involves some bigger hills being present on my longer runs. Recently, I have been doing them purely at the sea front and once on the promenade, there are no hills. That has been great for testing my pace, but I am now ready to get some elevation gain in my stats too and add that element into my workouts.
The other standout moment of the running week was that last Tuesday’s efforts session was run in the snow. Yes, snow was falling and a thin layer of it covered the sea front. It was glorious once I was in it, it just did not seem too appealing when I was sat in my car at 5.30am on a heated car seat while the icy wind blew the snow sideways outside. Here I am readying to leave the car……
When I got home, we took the kids out to throw snowballs as they had never seen snow before; we don’t get it often here.
It was a good week all in all…. Over at Jantastic and Strava I have managed to hit all my targets, I have a sports massage booked for tomorrow and right now things are looking good.
That’s it, short and sweet update today. I will be back later this week with a psychological process to advance recovery. I think you’ll love it.
