Mileage: 15 miles
AM: 3.75 miles; PM: 11.25 miles
I was tired Monday and I was still tired Tuesday. Last week at this point I was surprised at how fresh I felt after doing a 100 miles in the previous week. This week is a different story. I am sure it is because I am facing this week on the back of 2 weeks of 100 miles, as well as two 26 mile runs, including one at 2hours 55 minutes. No wonder I am feeling it. I have already reassessed my training this week, as a result. I am only going to do a 22 mile run at the end of it and I will restrict myself to a 7.30 minute per mile pace, instead of 26 miles at 7 minute mile pace. It means my weekly mileage will come out at around 95 miles, so there will not be a third week of a 100miles. Still, I think this is sensible and by doing a slightly shorter and slower long run I will give my body a better chance of running well in time for the Half Marathon at Nairn that I have entered on Saturday 21st. For this reason I am also going to miss this Saturday's club session and do my long run on Saturday not Sunday to give myself a full week to taper.
Tonight's training session was meant to be 12*800m at around 2minutes 39 seconds per rep with 2 minutes recovery. I met Niamh in the Meadows who was also keen for some long reps. She was also feeling fatigued after her ongoing marathon training so we agreed to just do 10 reps. The '800m' route we use in the Meadows (described in previous entries) is actually about 835-850m so is slightly longer than the track, it also has two sharp turns in, which you have to break for, so times are generally slower than on the track. Tonight, to make it that little bit tougher it was also stuffed with around a million Festival goers! Okay, I may be exaggerating, however, there was certainly a lot and none of them were on the look out for runners no matter what you called out to them. This added some interesting spice to the session, requiring us to make sharp course corrections, jump out of the way of confused walkers and even in one case avoid a police car driving down Middle Meadow Walk. Normally these kind of intrusions annoy me greatly, but tonight, possibly because I just wanted to get through the session, I just did what I had to get round people. There was simply too many, too often to get angry or frustrated.
Overall my legs still felt heavy from Sunday's efforts, but I was pretty pleased with my consistent times for each of the 10 reps and although I wasn't quite as fast as I hoped (2.39, works out at 5.20 minute per mile pace) I was happy to get through the session with no injuries or drop in form. As always it was good to have Niamh for company. Niamh was a little bit slower on each rep so for each one I gave her a small head start. It was really good to have a target to chase and I am pretty sure I would have gone a fair bit slower without that. I think Niamh appreciated having something to stay ahead of, as on those occasions when I caught up with her she seemed to find a kick to stay just ahead or stay with me.
Overall, another good session for the marathon.
Here are my times and the pace I was doing them:
1) 2.51 - 5.28 (minutes per mile pace)
2) 2.49 - 5.19 (mpmp)
3) 2.51 - 5.23 (mpmp)
4) 2.50 - 5.23 (mpmp)
5) 2.52 - 5.27 (mpmp)
6) 2.50 - 5.26 (mpmp)
7) 2.53 - 5.30 (mpmp)
8) 2.51 - 5.23 (mpmp)
9) 2.51 - 5.26 (mpmp)
10) 2.49 - 5.18 (mpmp)
Wednesday 11 August
Mileage: 13 miles
AM:3.75miles; PM: 9.25 miles
Well today I woke up with a bit of a scratchy throat and as the day has gone on it has turned into a little bit of a cold. I am feeling okay, just not great. I don't want to be accused of scaremongering or causing alarm, but this could be a case of man-flu.
I guess I will have to wait until tomorrow to see how it pans out. I am sure you'll be one of the first to know if it turns into man-flu as I rarely keep quiet when afflicted with such a disease. I am not surprised to be feeling a little run down. A few people at work and a few people at running club have had colds lately, so it is going around. I guess with the high mileage and feeling a little fatigued after all that training recently didn't help either. Hopefully it'll clear up quickly. I really could do without it with my race coming up in 9 days.
On the plus side my legs felt slight better today. Not as tired as Monday or Tuesday, which would suggest that I am over the worst of last Sunday's mammoth long run. My right knee is still a little dodgy, but again not bad. I am fairly certain it is the muscles around the knee that are the problem too, so I have been massaging and working on them to keep them lose.
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