So this was the week that football so nearly came home. The roller coaster of England making it to the final and then being defeated by the constant nemesis of penalties was an underlying feature of this week as there were too many late nights!
I mentioned at the end of last weeks post how Monday’s planned catch up of my missed Sunday run had not happened through bad planning on my part. Therfore Tuesdays speed session was the first run for a few days. It was back on to the long straight road near my house to knock out 5x 800m. That night was a late one as I watched the Italy v Spain semi.
Wednesday is gym day and for the first time I was able to line it up to shower there and go straight to the office. It saved time but will definitely need to better plan breakfast as I ended up having to grab a panettone from Costa, not ideal fuel! That night was the England semi final. I hoped for an earlier night but alas extra time meant another late one.
The impact of this was a very slow morning on Thursday. So slow in fact that despite getting as far as getting my kit on, I didn’t make it out the door before the day started! Fortunately, working from home does give me options I never had when commuting daily and that is the lunch time run. I therefore got out for my 5 miles albeit in very close conditions and, despite having the time, a “guilty feeling” about not working meant I went much too hard!
All this meant was that come Friday I still had a longer run left to do. I remember from before the strange feeling that week 1 long runs become a standard early start run. 8 miles at a slow pace is a nice way to start the day, even if the early start to achieve it wasn’t great for my tired body. It was also a day that, despite having no football did have a late night as after the kids had played cricket we were heading up to Leeds in absolutely terrible driving weather.
The reason that we were headed to Yorkshire was because I had been planning to run the Cookridge 10k with my brother in law. When I had been looking at my training plan I had seen this week called for a 10k race. In previous iterations I had just done a time trial but I decided to see what was on and was pleasantly surprised to find this race which is on my brother in laws doorstep on the perfect date and with a clear diary. It was perfect!
As it was diaries ended up changing and we needed to be home for the Sunday so it was a fleeting visit instead. I did get to do a non-parkrun around their local area although again, when we had first planned the trip I had been looking forward to parkrun being up and running again and trying out the due to start Chevin Forest parkrun but alas not yet.
As it was, this was actually the last run of the week as I ended up missing my Sunday run for the 2nd week on the trot. We got back so late Saturday night that an early start wasn’t on the cards and the day was the chocka right through to the final penalty of the Euros. It’s not a nice habit to get into but I will get back going now.
Amazingly that does mean I am a quarter of the way through training already. I think the fact that there hasn’t been much specific race information shared yet still makes the race feel a long way off but from now we do start to see mileage ramp up and hopefully a more consistent approach to training!
- Monday – Rest Day
- Tuesday – 5x 800m – 8.62km
- Wednesday – Gym
- Thursday – 7.67km @ 4:37 pace
- Friday – 12.71km @ 5:25km
- Saturday – Non parkrun 22:23
- Sunday – Unplanned restday
- Total – 34.0km
- Overall Total – 154.14km