I know it’s a cardinal sin to focus on weekly mileage and that it’s a likely indicator that I have a ‘terrible exercise addiction’ if I do, but at the same time, I have this nagging in my head that if I don’t log at least 60 miles per week, I’m not going to race as well as I want to at Wokingham HM and Manchester. It’s not like I’ve jumped from 35 miles per week to 60 - my last build topped out at 62 miles prior to Porto. Most of my weeks were in the 50-55 mile range and I know this is perfectly acceptable mileage to go under 3… but I want to go convincingly under and I don’t feel that this is a particularly big jump.
Yes, I am aware that this could well come back to bite me on the ass.
10 miles logged Tuesday, 9 on Wednesday and 8 on Thursday. Met Claire on Thursday to be told that I was hideously out of alignment. From memory (and I could be wildly wrong) she told me that my pelvis had rotated and I’d upshifted on one side. So, thanks to the meanest thumbs in the West Country, I am now somewhat healthy again. Primed for a session on Saturday consisting of 3x3 miles at MRP off 2 mins recovery followed by a 17 mile long run on Sunday. This should take me to 60+ miles for the week and hopefully avoid any PTSD that nags at my brain to tell me this is going to happen again at mile 21 of my next marathon.
Saturday session: This was interesting. In my head, 3x3 miles at MRP sounds pretty comfortable. Perhaps it’s because my last session of alternating k’s was exactly that - super comfortable. I was told to avoid any cambers and so I took to the treadmill. The realisation that each rep was going to take 20 or so minutes alerted me to the fact that, actually, this is going to feel longer than originally anticipated. Coupled with the fact that my current playlist is about as fresh as a stick of gum that’s been chewed for an hour and a half, todays training was a bit of a mental (and more physical than anticipated) slog. My heart rate shot up to 160 for the first 3 mile rep, dropped to 158 for the second and then settled at 156 for the finale.
I felt as though I had lost some speed, having not performed a session in 9 days. I was expecting Holly to tell me that this wasn’t the case, but, she informed me that actually this is very likely what has happened. The sad fact is that turnover & speed drop really quite quickly if you’re not ticking off your two sessions per week. Believe me, I’ve spent a good few years running 90%+ of my weekly miles easy and I can confirm that if you want to get faster, you have to practice running faster!
Tomorrows 17 long caps off the week with a total of 60.5 miles.