Sunday, 14 September 2014

Two weeks in September


Week ending  14 th September

Two weeks of news to catch up on. Last week marked another high week of mileage – 62 miles in the week. That has been my highest week of mileage in nearly 2 years but next week after that will be considerably lower as work and social commitments will make 6 days a week running difficult. Anyway last week consisted of 9 mls at 7.33 pace, 4 miles recovery walking with my wife, 12.4 mls at 8.03 pace, 9 miles at 7.40 pace, rest day, 6.2 miles at 8.03 pace with a long run on the Sunday of 21.5 mls at a slow pace of 8.40. The last run was the most important workout of the week, namely the plan was to spend around 3hrs5mins on my feet. This I managed easily enough – the Hr was 140- nice and steady. I had spend the few days prior to this celebrating my birthday with plenty of food and cake. Hopefully running 62 mls will prevent any major bulge occurring.

Monday this week was another recovery jog, 4 miles at 9.13 pace with a HR of 136. That should have meant by Tuesday I should have been fully rested for the weeks mileage but all day Tuesday in work and coming home I felt definitely out of sorts. My Hr was fine but I yet didn’t feel fully up to going for a 9 mile run. When training for Cork last year I used to force myself out for a run with the results being less than satisfactory. I opted for a rest and a early night instead. By Wednesday evening I was feeling more in tune running 9 miles with a 6 mile tempo at 7.06 pace. The splits were 7.10,7.08, 7.03, 7.07,7.09,6.56. Total time of tempo was 42mins36seconds.  The Hr was 162 average but was 166 for the last mile.  All in all I was happy with the workout in terms of distance and pace. The weather was great too.

Thursday was another tough workout. For my midweek runs I was running according to time on my feet rather than pace. The idea was to get up to 13 miles, 15 miles was probably pushing it. I was up to 12.41 miles last week so i hoped to run this 12 mile run at a sub 8 pace. I ran in and out of the estate behind my estate , up and down Love Lane out and back Smiths road and 3 laps around the park before a quick water break by the Cork road heading down by Pikes Cross and back into town taking up and down the  Railway road. I was doing fine by mile 10 and I was running around 7.40 pace. The last two miles were a struggle to be honest but I managed to gut it out to complete the workout at 7.45 pace. It didn’t come easy. The Hr was 155.

Friday I normally don’t run but having missed a workout on Tuesday I wanted to get the 9 miles around town in a relaxed pace- 9 miles at 8.19 pace. The Hr was 147. Saturday was a interval session. 1.5 mile warm up and a 2.5 mile cooldown with 6 x 3 minutes at 6.40 pace. I covered around 0.45 miles with each interval, this was similar to 3 weeks ago. Were I training for races between 3.1 miles and 10 miles I would probably need to do more reps at a faster pace.Maybe in the future. I have a few ideas what I want to do after Amsterdam but that can wait a while yet.

Sunday was the bread and butter long run. We met at the roundabout at 8 am , did 7 miles and then a further 13 at Caherduggan. I ran a further 3 miles afterwards giving me 23 miles and 3hrs17mins up on the legs. I didn’t feel unduly stressed running but hopefully I can at a decent marathon pace on the day. Hr was 141, average pace 8.33. It will probably be my longest run of the current training cycle.

Total mileage for week ending 7th September 62 miles,

Total mileage for week ending 14th September 63 miles.

1 comment:

  1. The training is coming along very nicely Cathal. No long left now.

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