A tougher week

Week ending 25^th January 2015

This was a week of high mileage with Sunday today being my rest day. Enjoying the rest from running too. I never saw the point of running 7 days a week even though I realised last night I actually had run 7 days in a row if not quite in the same week. While I doubt I am actually running much faster, I do hope that a prolonged period of high mileage (with the occasional cutback week) might help improve my endurance for Connemara. A number of textbooks do caution against heavy loading and not over reaching. I reckon I should be ok,as long I get the back to backs in.

 A bit of increased speed would be nice too but as I am training for a ultra that isn’t a priority. I normally like to take the Friday evening off fitting my back to back runs over the Saturday/Sunday or Sunday/Monday but I had a friends 40^th to attend in Ballincollig on Saturday so my plans had changed. I also realised that the days planned for the back to back runs will vary over the next few weeks due to one thing or another. The main thing is to get them done.

Monday evening after work was the second day of my back to back after 18 miles the day before in Charleville. The legs felt fine getting out of bed on Monday morning but by the time I got home they were pretty heavy. I was tempted to foam roll them before I went out the door for a  run but this would have defeated the point of the exercise, that is learning to run on heavy legs and as far as I am aware I don’t think there will be any opportunities for foam rolling in Connemara during the ultra (hur hur). The effort felt fine but the pace was slow around 9 minutes per mile. Tuesday was a easier day a recovery run with 8 * 30 second strides to liven the legs up and a faster 8 mile hill run up in Mayfield on Wednesday followed by a 2 mile easier cooldown run. Thursday was the day of the teachers strike so that gave me a rare chance to get some daylight running in. This I wanted to run slightly slower than tempo pace but faster than a medium pace, 7 miles with 6 miles at 7.25 pace. The effort did feel uncomfortable at times.

That left me with the long run up in Cork after work on Friday. I was uncertain as to what mileage I was going to do but decided on a policy of getting as far as Lady’s Well and taking it from there as I had a option of going out as far as Carrigrohane road or turning up towards Mayfield. After a hour I had run 7.3 miles and was feeling pretty good so decided to press on, after the second hour things were getting a bit tougher running 7.1 miles. It was a cool evening but I was feeling a bit parched (no water). The last section was a really tough horrible section up the by now well worn hills towards Mayfield. I was disappointed having to stop twice for walking breaks (2 minutes each) but regained my composure to complete the last 3 miles at a steady pace. If anything brought home to me the enormity of the personal challenge I was setting myself it was this run and the 11.5 miles I completed the next morning in Charleville. That left the night free for socialising and very good it was too.

Miles for the week 61.5 – Monday 10 miles, Tuesday 4 miles with 8 * 30 strides, Wednesday 10 miles with 8 miles at 7.27 pace, Thursday 7 miles with 6 miles at 7.25 pace, Friday 19 miles at 8.46 pace, Saturday 11.5 miles in 91 minutes.