15th-21st October 2012

so its now the second week post Chester marathon an it looks like things are dare i say it, improving. Not completely over the marathon though because a cold seems to of cropped up just to chuck an extra little spanner in the works. as a result of this i decided to take this week pretty lightly on the mileage front. MONDAY i decided to have a rest day today to try an shake the cold off ready for track tomorrow. sometimes the best training can be no training i think. if i`m under the waether i tend to let a days training slide. although i was dying to get out there so it really took all the self discipline in me to rest. TUESDAY Today i was down at the track for the first time since 2 weeks before the marathon so this was a massive shock to the system. was glad to of got through this session without giving up. last week i was all sore or D.O.M.S'ed (Delayed onset muscle soreness) as us runners like to call it. Sounds technical that way doesn't it, anyway my point is i was all "oh i'll not be able to train for ages" but in reality once i had lost the soreness i was able to do some good sessions. Todays session: 12x400m in 1:15(5min/mile pace) with 1:15 walking recoveries. we also did about 2miles easy before and after the session as well (warm up/Cool down) it was hard but a good quality session so myself an training partner were both happy with this session. Tuesday club run time of day-6pm running distance-9.52miles running time-----1:19:03 average pace-----8:18mm ave heart rate---143bpm on this run i tend not to go for specific paces because its really not practical because it depends who turns up really and i prefer it more for the social side anyway. WEDNESDAY time of day-5pm running distance-6.02miles - out an back running time-----51:20 average pace-----8:32mm ave heart rate---140bpm. this was really just a steady out and back recovery run today. still enjoyed though. seems weird to not be doing big miles at the moment aswell. i`m not used to stopping so soon into a run. THURSDAY time of day-10am running distance-9.53miles running time-----1:24:24 average pace-----8:51mm ave heart rate---139bpm today i was doing a proper HADD style run. i went out along the cycle path and turned round at the 40min mark. on the way back i had to slow the pace a fair bit to keep heart rate down below 140bpm (70% of max) but i`m hoping with each passing week this cardiac drift is minimised as earobic conditioning improves. Thursday Club Track Session this was my first club track session for several weeks so after the initial shock of tuesdays session this one felt alot better to be honest as the legs were more in the swing now. really enjoyed this session aswell. 2mile warm up 5x800metres in 2:37(5:14mile pace) 2.5mile warm down. legs felt great so enjoyed this session. FRIDAY Today the cold was making itself known so i passed on the morning run an saved myself because i knew the evening run with Ste an Mark was going to be a tough day at the office. i hadn`t done anyhills at all since before the marathon so when we started this run i thought it was okay for the first couple of miles because we were generally taking it steady on the flat, yep that was hortlived though because after about 3miles we hit a long hill which was NOT fun. mental note: practice hills more. thank god for that i thought when i got to the top. felt like me legs were gunna explode. time of day-4pm running distance-10.42miles running time-----1:22:20 average pace-----7:54mm ave heart rate---151bpm SATURDAY i just felt shattered so i was busy doing nothing all day today. cold wasn't helped by yesterday in all honesty. didn't want to sacrifice Border League race tomorrow either so just rested up. SUNDAY so today was the border League an i felt good, this could only mean one thing. i just had to go for a PB. no other way. we might have got there a bit on the early side though because we ended up going for a coffee at 9.30am in caernarfon. turned out peter had brought cookies to. so after half a cookie an a coffee we eventualy headed back to the car got in to running mode an headed off down the short way to the race start. the weather really picked up for the race aswell which was nice. starting the race as usual there was a fast pace so i had to let em go again an hope to hang to a maybe the top 10 which was going well untill about the first k. thats when my race started because i just got the stitch of me life. it just got worse an worse till about 3k so then i eased back an Ste caught me at 5k so i then ran with him for the rest of the race thinking if i can pull him along at 6min mile pace he may be close to a pb. i couldn't help looking at me watch though every time we passed a km marker because that stitch was unrelenting (bloody Cookie- Lesson learned there) the downhills seemed to compound it too. i was so relieved to get to that finish line in 37:18 though because that stich was just unreal. people seemed to expect me to be dissapointed with my run but i was actually made up really because i learned that if i really want to i can actually keep going when me heads telling, no DEMANDING me to stop. so it was actually a great run for the mental toughness i'd say.

basically i'm happy that i didn't just give up when it got hard. then i would of been annoyed with meself. so a good day really. week summary total mileage--67.55miles total run time-9:12:25 average pace---8:11 ave heart rate-143BPM overall an enjoyable week i'd say :-)