Week 2

Runs: 6
Total Miles: 63

As a rule, i am not, and indeed never have been, "down with the kids". I am just not that sort of chap. Every so often however pop culture does make some sort of an impression on my world and i will end up ROFLing, accidentally using 'amazeballs' in an unironic way or flayling about in a vaguely Gangnam Style. Last week i someone managed to learn that H.A.M is hip hop for 'hard as a melonfarmer'. This week has mostly been about being that melonfarmer.

After the omni-wind of last week the early part of the week continued in a Son of Bawbag sort of way. Some substantially heavy winds battered the south of Glasgow over tuesday and wednesday in particular. In such circumstances the sensible thing to do is to find an incline of say 5 miles in length and run up it into a massive head wind. H.A.M...

If week 1 is all about freshness and optimism, week 2 is about fatigue and your lack of sharpness bringing you back down to earth. On top of weariness from the first week of proper training the schedule turns it up another notch or two. I have felt that this week. At no point have i ever felt truly recovered and it has mostly been a bit of a slog.

That was the case until Friday at least. As the saying goes, Friday night is tempo night. I dont do nearly enough tempo running. It never hurts quite as much as i expect and it always brings a massive training boost. Fortunately this particular programme as a decent diet of tempo runs over the weeks but i am tempted to introduce a few more and make it a regular part of my running week.

This week was 9 miles with 4 at sub-Half pace. That tempo section felt quite manageable. Not convinced i could have gone on significantly further but it wasnt an all out effort by any means. What was curious though was the warm down. First warm down mile felt great. HR came down nicely and my pace was good. Then i bonked. I guess the faster running had just depleted my glycogen stores and if i wasnt totally rested they may have been lower to start with. All the same it was unexpected to go from feeling great to suddenly being all wibbly wobbly in the legs.

As i have probably mentioned before i am generally trying to do this programme on a reduced carb-intake to try and develop fat burning systems. I must admit that while i have traditionally used nutrition on longer runs i have been slightly sceptical over the actual benefits that accrue from it. Omitting it suggests that it definitely does something whether that is as a placebo or physiologically. Sunday's long run demonstrated that. First half was great. Easy and decent pace. Second half saw my heart rate climb and climb. No bonking but the last few miles were a trial. I slogged through them to get my first 20 miler of the campaign in.

Hard as a melonfarmer.