This has probably been one of the hardest weeks of training so far. Not necessarily because of the actual training. More that as the coronavirus issue gets bigger and bigger, so do my fears the races will not go ahead. It’s hard to see them going ahead with marathons in Rome, Paris and Barcelona all falling foul. These are all postponing so I can see this being the case with mine as well, with a little hope they will go ahead as planned. However, while they are still in the diary, training continues.
After last weeks long run on Sunday I ended up having a couple of bad nights sleep. Whilst I didn’t feel too bad in the day, by night I could really feel all the aches and pains of training . This meant I couldn’t get comfortable at all. Unfortunately this meant that when I got to Tuesday morning, I was shattered. Perhaps in part driven by fears around cancellation, my motivation was lower and for the first time in quite a while, I made the decision to roll over and get some more sleep.
After this unplanned rest day it was time to get back on it come Wednesday. I picked up with the session that I had missed, a set of mile long intervals. It was good morning to be out and get the legs moving again. Somewhat pleasingly I found I was able to keep up quite a high pace throughout.
Thursday I was back at the gym with a session that focused on my legs. Something I definitely felt on Friday morning. It was a shorter run at around 5 miles with the bulk at tempo pace. What this did mean was that by the end of the week my mileage was feeling a little low and Saturday was going to be another rest day as my sons football meant no time for parkrun. The good news is his team won and he kept his first clean sheet.
None of this was an issue though as Sunday saw my training peak. The long run being the furthest I have to run in the whole training plan. It was only a mile more than last week (and next) but it signified a zenith. First though it was time for Junior parkrun.
After several weeks of cancellations through wind and/or flooding, today saw Riverside back on. It also meant my youngest finally got to do his first official run almost a month after we were finally able to get him a barcode. I was down to do 1st timers briefing but, with them running slightly light on volunteers and with my sister in law and her husband with us, we had enough parents to run with the kids. Therefore I jumped on to a new role for me, time-keeping.
The kids did well and then after taking the elder son to a party, it was finally time to head out around lunchtime. I was following the same route as last week, with a little flourish at the end to add the extra mile called for. It was a little less windy than last week but I wasn’t very impressed at the rain that wasn’t forecast on my weather app!
I didn’t feel quite as free as last week but was still able to keep quite a good pace. I’m not sure if it was sore legs from the Thursday squats, a lack of pre run fuelling or a combination of both but I was happy when I got home. From now on the training will slowly start to ease up and all being well, in 4 weeks time I’ll be on the start line in Manchester. Just keep everything crossed now!
- Monday – Rest Day
- Tuesday – Rest Day
- Wednesday – 4 x 1 miles 9.40km
- Thursday – Strength and Conditioning session
- Friday – 7.70km @ 4:48 pace
- Saturday – Rest Day
- Sunday – 33.61km @ 5:26 pace
- Total – 50.71km
- Overall Total – 613.68km