Saturday 21 February 2015

Parkrun #6

22:34mins. 127/907


A disappointing end to the week in this morning's Parkrun. This also constituted my long run for #Jantastic so I had to get 12 miles under my belt.  A steady 3 laps to start with which I began at 7:30am felt ok although my Achilles tendons were particularly tight at the start. I got swallowed up at the start of the ParkRun proper and as a result pushed too hard the opening 2 kms. It had rained all night and it was very slippy underfoot and the first kilometre was very boggy and I found it very hard to get into any form of rhythm. By the time we got onto the gravel path things were a bit better and I could see that I was in my usual place at around 30th ish position. Normally by the time we get to halfway I am feeling strong and start to overtake quite a few people but I really noticed that I was going the other way and struggling. I had had a busy week's training and had got 7 sessions in and I was beginning to pay for this. As we ran past the playground I could feel my pace tailing off but I was hanging onto the group that I was with.

Only the final tight left hand turn to negotiate around the playground so I deftly avoided the large muddy puddle on the bend and planted my foot firmly on what remained of the path, only to find my leg skidding beneath me on loose gravel. I was down before I even registered that I had lost my footing and took the full impact on my left knee and hip. To add insult to injury I also found myself in the puddle that I had been trying to avoid in the first place. I've come off my bike a fair few times but I have to say that this was the most painful accident that I have ever had training or racing. I have left a lot of skin in bushy Park.

I have just looked at my Strava log for the event and I had blown pretty badly before then. The first 3 kms had all been around 4 minutes, but my 4th one was 4:12! I've been doing a lot of speed work and some turbo sessions but I have not been recovering enough. I don't think the 15kms I ran beforehand had as much to do with it as the training during the week. It looks like that next week will be an enforced recovery week anyway as I am finding it hard to bend my leg at the moment. Sub-optimal. Lesson learnt.






Tuesday 17 February 2015

Parkrun #5

22:37 234/1079

Somewhat slower, but this was a blast. It was Wheezy Junior's first Parkrun so we spent the first 4km together. he did brilliantly and really enjoyed it, and unlike me when I was his age, he didn't sprint the first 400 metres then end up walking. (The number of times I used to do that....). Just a really solid, consistent pace throughout. We has run the first 1km and last kilometre as a warm up so that he would have a good idea of what to expect and to recognise a few landmarks in the last kilometre. When we got to the playground I pushed on and ended up overtaking 35 other runners but Wheezy Junior was only 30 seconds behind. A top effort.

The next day I met up with Simon for a very lumpy 3 hour ride, taking in Coldharbour Lane, Leith Hill and Whitedown. I have to say that considering my complete lack of base miles I felt pretty good. Simon was having a tough time as he just has not been able to get out on the bike at all in the last few months and he kept getting dropped. Once we start racing I'm sure his fitness will return and I'll be eating his dust as usual, but it seems that his metaphoric hill is a larger one to climb at the moment.

I seem to have found a pretty good pattern to my weekly training. 3-4 runs, with nearly all of them including some form of speed work or faster running, even if just a few fartlek efforts. My commute cycling, again, with some form of hard effort at some point, and finally a longish ride to burn a few calories. I don't think I'll be setting the TT world alight in the early season but I do feel like some form of fitness is creeping in. It will be interesting to see how  go in the next few parkruns and whether any meaningful chunks of time will be shaved off. It would be nice to think that I can dip under 19:30 and start to think about sub 19 in the next 6 weeks or so. Just the small matter of staying injury free.

Monday 2 February 2015

Parkrun #3 and #4

#3  19:31  41/1154

#4 19:45 29/844   8th MV40-45

Once again a gradual decline due to not enough training. A bonkers couple of weeks at work left me doing a very minimal amount of training. Both these runs were bulked out to 6.5 miles by running a slow warm up lap. Saturday's run was very wet and slippy underfoot with lots of sleet making it squinty and difficult to see. The last few hundred metres I really blew up and got overtaken by a couple of other runners. The plan is to get back to running four times per week and getting a quality interval session in.

Yesterday I went for a slow bimble with Simon, covering 11.5 miles in just over 90 minutes and it was my longest run in quite a while. The hills were a struggle but no major worries and it was good to get a few miles under my belt.