Week 7 was the final full week of training that I managed last year before London was called off part way through the following week. It is strange as last year I spent the whole period waiting for that cancellation, this time I still don’t really feel like I’ve hit my training rhythm. That does show in my overall distance. In the last block by the end of week 7 I had completed 334.87km. This was about 6km more than the first block and that had included disruption around Christmas and New Year. By the end of week 7 this time I have only managed just over 260km thanks to missing some long runs and the disruption of an isolation week. This week was another that was a bit stop/start!
The week started on the Monday with 400m sprints. I was a bit shattered waking up having fallen into the trap of watching the Olympic Triathlon the night before so I hadn’t had a huge sleep. It did really put in context though how amazing these Olympic athletes are. My 10x 400m sprints averaged at a pace of around 3:50 (great training as I start to look towards 20mins at parkrun as a target again). The fact that this was slower than they were managing in the triathlon for a 10k, after a swim and a bike ride and in blistering heat and humidity does put you in your place!
The reason I was running on the Monday was that Tuesday saw me get my second Covid jab. Everyone that I speak to has had one bad jab and as my first had been fine, I was a little apprenehsive. Through Tuesday I felt fine until about 7pm when suddenly it was like I’d been hit by a ton of bricks. I was tired, shivering and felt terrible. At least it helps in the long run!
I did get up to go to the gym the following morning having missed the past two weeks but that was a mistake. I managed about 20mins before bailing and come Thursday morning I still wasn’t 100% fighting fit so I didn’t head out then either.
By Friday I was better but my mojo wasn’t quite there and as I had the day off work, I didn’t want to be out for too long. Therefore I ended up settling for a nice 5m rather than one of the longer runs on the plan.
Saturday was parkrun day again. When we were awaiting the return, I was facing a moral dilemma. I knew I would want to have a go at setting a fast time but, my daughter was going to really want to go too. She had run with me the last time before the pandemic hit and has done several non-parkrun with me in the meantime. Her PB in Feb last year was around 38mins but she had managed around 33mins during lockdown and was eager to see what she could do. In the end one fortunate side effect of her class bubble bursting was that last week she wasn’t allowed to run so this week we headed there together. She hadn’t done any 5kms with me since Junior parkrun returned earlier in the year so I wasn’t quite sure how she would do. She shot off like a bullet but in the end we settled into a nice run/walk rhythm and set a new official PB of 35.05 for her, not bad for a 7yr old!
The week ended with me finally managing a long run on a Sunday! The plan called for 16 miles and it meant that I was finally able to try out a route that had been on my radar for a while. It had a couple of surprises for me with a very short, sharp hill (hitting 14% gradient at steepest point – given how flat it is around here, that was a surprise!). This came shortly after a 10min wait as I had the worst timing at a level crossing. Overall though it was nice to get some mileage in my legs and I was able push the last 3-4 km out at race pace just to test that as well.
With various things happening over next few weeks then I will have to plan well to ensure I don’t fall back off the training wagon but at least it looks like I will go deeper into the plan than last summer!
- Monday – 10x 400m – 8.91km
- Tuesday – Rest Day
- Wednesday – Gym
- Thursday – Rest Day
- Friday – 7.66km @ 4:42 pace
- Saturday – Pocket parkrun with Jess 35:06
- Sunday – 25.61km @ 5:23 pace
- Total – 47.18km
- Overall Total – 263.83km