Another week over - not quite as planned

After Monday's long(est yet/ever) run, and Tuesday's recovery jog, I ran again on Thursday, a fast run of 7.1 miles. This took me 50:38, which was 11 seconds faster than I'd done it before - the improvement was in the last couple of miles, which is a good thing I think.

Then, though, I had a diarrhoea and vomiting bug on Thursday night, together with the rest of the family (one of my children began on Wednesday) - out came Thursday's dinner, and I didn't eat another bite until a piece of bread Saturday morning.

That meant that I couldn't meet this week's target of 45 miles - this was meant to be a final tough weak, before beginning a taper (easing off) until the race day. As it's turned out, though, with all that's intervened in the last couple of months, I've scarcely increased my weekly mileage since I got up to 36 miles 8 weeks ago.

Never mind! As a first-timer, I have no experience to inform me as to what I should be aiming for anyway! After eating nothing on Friday, I felt a bit better today, and had some fish fingers for lunch, before running 5 miles at tea-time. I ran really gently, though when I finished I was surprised to see a time of 40:38 - I was expecting 43 or so. I think that only one day of D & V means I won't have been affected too much; just a bit weak and needing to start eating again to recover my strength. 39.2 miles for the week in total; the race itself is just 23 days away. Tomorrow I'll be, all being well, carrying on preaching the sermon series which can be downloaded here: http://www.gracebelper.org.uk/audio.php#acts.

David
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7 miles whilst there's time!

I didn't make time to run yesterday, which means that with the rest of what I need to do this week, it'll be tricky to make up the miles. I think I'm meant to be pushing myself quite hard at the moment as once you get to 3 weeks beforehand you're meant to slow down so that the body isn't tired on race day. Ah well - there's still next week.

As I hadn't run yesterday, this was my first run after the fast half-marathon - so I just needed to give my legs the opportunity to stretch out again; nothing too fast. I chugged round in 55 minutes, and everything felt OK - not too tired. That's not surprising, given that I've only had two significant runs (more than 4 miles) in the last week. I think this run will have done me good.

David
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Where did that come from?

My 3 runs so far this week had been a warm-up jog and 2 longer runs at a steady rate. So that meant that today I ought to try a faster one. I chose 7.1 miles (one lap of the hilly bit and then to the next village and back), for which my best time was 53:54. I was aiming to take a minute off that.

I looked at my watch after the first mile and it told me I was going far too fast. But, I felt relaxed; and just kept going. Somehow I managed to take 3 minutes off, finishing in 50:49. I felt in control all the way round. At the 5-mile mark I was only 10 seconds off my best 5 mile time from last Saturday - when I felt like I was going flat out (relative to the distance), and finished with a sprint. The last 2.1 miles today was also faster than I've ever covered that distance at the end of a run (14:42).

This seems like an odd business. My records don't show me as having eased off in the last couple of weeks so that I could record a fast time more easily. Sometimes running seems hard work and sometimes it feels easy. Sometimes the reasons for that are easy to work out - trying to do too much, or having had a break. Sometimes though, I don't know why. I hope I'll work it out before the race day! Maybe really pushing myself on the shorter run last Saturday was what did it. Or maybe its the extra strength from last week's 20-miler. I really don't know; I hope I'm not peaking prematurely! I do know that on days like this it's easy to admire God's world - the colours, the hills, the sky, the quietness - as you slide by.

I think this has probably been my best week of training yet. I ran the same distance as last week (39.2 miles), which is the most I've run, and I've felt great. Admittedly the effort of the 27 miles on Tuesday and Thursday (combined) really tired me out - I've cat-napped during the day 3 times since then!

David
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