Week 8

Total mileage: 62

Runs: 6

 

No new ailments...

 

The story of this campaign so far is of missed targets. Another week, another failure to quite live up to the lofty ideals of my training schedule. Every time I look at my training diary I can feel its scornful gaze looking back, mocking my indolent inability to manage to get all my sessions in.

 

To be fair my failure this week was rather less significant than in previous weeks, amounting only to not quite managing to get my second run of the day in on Tuesday. Yes, that's right, my second Tuesday run. This is one of the aspects of my programme of which I am currently most wary. I understand the theory behind it - two shorter runs in a day allow you to maintain peak mileage whilst reducing the injury potential of the impact of longer runs. That makes sense logically but the idea of running twice in one day just seems, well, a bit wrong.

 

This past week I was saved from this perversion by Huddersfield. The need to travel has been a frequent obstruction this time round and while i was perfectly prepared to rush home at 8:30 in the evening and head straight out the door for a run after a long day, I wasn't prepared to try and do a swift 4 miles before my 05:40 train.

 

Apart from that this has been an excellent week of running. Definite progresss has been made. If there's anything which comes with a guarantee in the world of running it is that you are going to get some sort of a training boost from either a decently long tempo run or an absolutely muckle long slow run. This week had both and as a result I am feeling significantly more confident and generally stronger.

 

With increasing volume I did greet the reintroduction of quality with some trepidation. Trying to run hardon fatigued legs can be a very messy business if not approached with caution. Apart from the key sessions this week my focus has mostly been on recovery and making sure am able to run hard when I need to. This has meant making sure the slow stuff is properly slow again. Running slowly is harder than most people think. It is less efficient, your form is different and it just feels a bit weird. The thing is though, even just being slightly too quick on a recovery day can cause massive knock on effects later on. I think I could still stand to go a bit slower on my easy days but I have more or less done enough to manage my legs through the week and through sunday's long run.

 

That long run was indicative of how difficult running can be. Not because it was especially hard (21 miles isn't ever easy though), but because of how hard it can be to understand. Last week's similar run felt quite comfortable. This week's felt like a bit of a trial. Counter intuitively this week's was significantly quicker and at a lower average heart rate. So, listening to your body is vital, but sometimes you need to get it to submit written evidence just to be sure.

 

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