7th - 13th May 2012

M  6.23 miles recovery (7:15mm avge) AM, 4.19 miles recovery (7:09mm avge) PM

T  10.15miles, including 5X600m VO2Max Intervals (6:18mm avge)

W  15.11 miles progressive (6:27mm avge) AM, 4.16 miles recovery (7:10mm avge) PM

T 9.04 miles general aerobic, including 8 X100m strides (6:27mm avge)

F 7.18 miles recovery (7:09mm avge)

S 9.56 miles, including Dulwich Parkrun in @ 5:02mm (6:04mm avge)

S 20.11 miles mildly progressive (6:31mm avge)

Total 85.74 miles (6:36mm avge)

Another good week where if anything the focus was really a bit of maintenance before I start to taper down (again!). Tuesday’s intervals session was pleasing so shortly after Sunday’s mammoth 22 miler with MP sections. I tried to keep the pace nice and controlled on these and was pleased to see a decent return for less effort than last time I did these. The legs were however quite tired on the warm down.

Wednesday was pretty much exactly the same as last week with a rather mild progressive run into work. It was a fraction quicker than last week for a similar effort so perhaps I have gained a couple of seconds per mile of fitness (they all count!).

An then Thursday and Friday were slightly easier runs as I tried to freshen the legs up a bit ahead of a Parkrun blast on Saturday morning. I chose to do this at Dulwich which is a relatively new Parkrun venue and I know it to be pretty flat and therefore likely to be fairly fast as I have done some decent long Marathon pace tempo runs there in the build-up. I was pleased to see Richard Ward on the start line as it meant I would get a hard run. As an under 20 Richard was ranked higher than Mo Farah, Scott Overall and Andy Baddeley in the 1,500m rankings so if I could beat him he would be a great scalp for me. He had also done a 15:10 5k earlier in the year. Off we went and I planned to stick close to him as possible, after about 600m I noticed that we were running at 2:55 per k pace which is ridiculous! It slowed down quite a bit after that though and the first k was ticked off in 3:02.7, the second k where we were still fighting for position was a 3:05.1 and then the third marginally slower at 3:06.9. By this point I knew I had the beating of him and now it was about coasting to the finish. My Dad had also sent me a text earlier in the week reminding me not to overtrain so with that clicking over in my mind I didn't have the desire to really push on and try for a PB. The 4th k which was all marginally uphill was a 3:16.4 and then the last k in 3:07.3. I then measured it another 9 seconds long but Garmins are never 100% accurate. I broke the course record with 15:48 (it's only been going five weeks) and was very pleased with the run and actually rate it as a better performance than my 15:34 PB at Hackney marshes. Dulwich is a slightly tougher course and I didn't really go to the well in this one like I did at Hackney (and my Garmin measured it a touch long ;-) ) so all in all I think I am in a better position than I was two weeks before London. This is especially encouraging considering the lack of VO2 Max stuff I have been doing recently which is absolutely essential to fulfil your potential at 5k.

Sunday was a 20 miler at a fairly easy pace. I had wondered whether I needed to do a 20 two weeks out and although I am sure I could have got away with only doing an 18 I really feel I cope better off a shorter taper. And as I said in the past couple of weeks, I had a short time to build my training up before reducing it again for Edinburgh given that I had the benefits of a full and long taper for London which didn’t happen so I have been trying to strike a balance between doing enough but not too much. As we know I didn’t manage to finish at London and this could well have been because I pushed the training a little bit too hard which made me susceptible to bugs – but the reality is we will never know. I have to commute to London every day meaning I have the pleasure of sharing a train carriage with 70 odd people who always tend to be coughing and spluttering so it’s no doubt that I will pick up stuff from time to time! The run went well anyway but the legs were certainly tired after Saturday's 5k exploits.

So this coming week looks quite nice with a c30% reduction in the miles of this week and only one hard run to think of. The cake is mixed, baking and about to come out of the oven, I just need the timer to ping and it’ll be full steam ahead at Edinburgh two weeks today.