The focussed block of training started from the 6th June, 16
weeks from Berlin & therefore 14 weeks of building the training up before what will be a welcome 2 week taper.
W/C 30/5 – 83M + 6 3/4hrs cross training, inc London 10K (30:50, 13th), Ramathon HM (69:01, 1st) & generally steady running as I was fighting a bug/virus all week. Happy with where my fitness is, Ramathon felt a good hard tempo effort without going into the red.
W/C 6/6
Mon – 4.6M Easy / 8.1M Relaxed
Tues – 10.5M inc session of 3 x 9mins @ ~HM effort (1min) into 6 x 1min (30secs). Fairly sluggish but got through it without any issues.
Weds – 5.5M E / 10M tempo. Brought my tempo forward a day to jump in with Kev as he had 10K @ 5:10’s. Unfortunately carrying the sluggish feeling over from the night before, & ticking off the miles inside 5mm meant I was out after 3 but jumped back in for 2 more. A good workout at least.
Thurs – 7.3M R / 12.4M Steady/fartlek inc some shorter efforts of between 150-300m.
Fri – 5M E / 7M R. Felt quite good despite a 2 hour drive home!
Sat – 11.4M Tempo (5:30-40 pace/effort) / 5.7M R. Felt nice & comfortable at that effort, 10 miles covered in ~56. Good afternoon run.
Sun – 20.1M R. Very easy effort so pleased to tick off 20 in just outside 2hrs.
Total 108M + 4 1/2hrs XT. Av pace 6:14, weight 64.2kg.
Focus has switched fully to Berlin now with any races before then forming part of the build up & likely to be trained through. The first few weeks will be building on the structure & getting used to coping with the load from day to day. I won’t be chasing anything too fast, nor will I be obsessing over the big mileage at this stage – that will come as the volume of sessions & long runs increases!
This was a very encouraging start to the training though with a lot of good paced running. Looking to see progress through to the end of the month & use Prestwold 10K as a good gauge for the next few week’s training/targets.
Three things I will be doing properly are eating, recovering & maintaining my gym routine. Simple in theory, but fitting everything in is always a challenge & 16 weeks is a long time!
