The above picture was taken five years ago whilst preparing for a double distance Ironman. Whilst in good shape, in the water, I sank like a stone..!
Speed Build: Week 7: Travel & Training
I want to preface this post with 2 tips to potentially help lessen the chance of injury and improve your running economy. The first is to increase your cadence to help prevent over striding. Without doubt the biggest game changer for me since my real road journey began back in June 2023. To do this, perform your regular easy run and then look back at your cadence data. If you’re given a reading of, let’s say, 165spm, find the metronome setting on your sports watch and set it to 170spm. The key is to run in time with the beeps but not allow your HR to creep out of your aerobic ‘zone’. It takes practice but it’s worth the effort. Over time, aim to build to between 170-180spm. The second tip is to include strides 1-2 times per week on flat or hills or both. These are not all-out sprints, simply controlled fast efforts, focussing on good turnover. For the short amount of time this takes, you’ll receive some incredible benefits with regard to running form and economy over time. Check out the latest podcast from ‘Inside Exercise’ with Dr. Bryan Heiderscheit, episode 86 for some interesting, easy to understand info.
This week has been chaotic. After running an easy 8 miles on Monday and ‘sort of’ taking Tuesday off, barring an upper body lifting session and two mile run with a client, Lemmy and I packed Holly off to Germany where she took part in ‘Pass the Spark’; a carrying of the torch by ASICS for the Olympic Games in Paris. I walked Lem at 5:30am, at which time it was 16 degrees celsius and then trained a client before warming up (!) for my the first session of the week. I wore the Metaspeed Sky Edge in order to save my preferred Sky Paris for racing. These shoes have done a fair few miles and are beginning to disintegrate, but they still seem to provide some level of performance assistance. I walked out into 19 degree heat for a mile plus drills and strides, of which I performed 4x20 seconds, before going into part 1 of todays workout: 6x1 min at 5k effort off 1 min recovery. True to form, I went too fast. Not for a lack of trying to stay controlled, but as mentioned before, I suck at pacing. After a 3 minute jog I hopped onto a treadmill at our local gym, Falcon Fitness, an insane Mecca in the Uk for bodybuilders. Because this is a gym geared toward lifters, the treadmills are usually free.
Part deux of my session was as follows: A continuous 6 mile run alternating between 6:15 per mile and 6:30 per mile. Despite the climbing heat and lack of air conditioning the first 6:15 actually felt better than expected. I’d presumed it was all going to feel tough today, but this first rep was a pleasant surprise. The shock came during the second mile at 6:30, which almost felt harder. I had expected it to feel like a recovery but it didn’t feel an awful lot different to the 6:15 reps.
“How can I keep this up for another 5 miles?” I wondered, knowing that I could and I would, but that I also might die.
On returning home, Holly informed me that there should have been a 2 minute jog recovery between each mile… yes, the fatigue of training at this stage crushes my already limited ability to think, which is why I communicate via writing a blog. If I could edit my verbal communication as well as this, I might not come off as the complete and utter fool that I am.
Thursday was 9 miles easy followed by 6 easy Friday morning, after which I jumped on the train to London.
I do the occasional photoshoot throughout the year for a bit of extra income, and Saturday was a track shoot for the ASICS FrontRunners. This meant no running on Saturday until we returned home, late in the afternoon. I am not one for training later in the day, but needs must, so I took off into the heat for a 5 mile shuffle with 6x10 seconds hill strides thrown in. It was one of those slow, hard runs that you want to be over from minute one. I wondered whether the 15 miles I had planned for Sunday morning would be affected by this effort, considering that my adductor likes 24 hours to recover from any run. Luckily, Sunday felt entirely different. Getting out early in cooler temperatures makes such a difference. My tell tale sign for a potentially good run is how quick my cadence is starting out. If it’s north of 180spm it’s going to be a good day. Sub 170spm means it’s going to be a long day. I usually run sans headphones, but this morning I played a ‘techno for working hard’ playlist from Spotify which, amazingly, really helped.
At this point I’m not fuelling any long runs, but that will change from next week. I ended up going for 16 miles but knew in the final mile or two how much of a difference nutrition would have made later into the run. I should have been fuelling and knew it, but laziness won out.
54 miles for the week, which is ample for 5k training. My final chance to pb is on July 9th at the Westbury 5k race series. The temps look warm and the humidity high, but I’ll give it a damned good go, after that, we (as in Holly and me, not the IG ‘we’ which seems to be inclusive of everyone following) move into Marathon training..!