M 12 miles (6:19mm)
T 11 miles (6:37mm), 6 miles (7:07mm)
W 18 miles including Marathon Session (4X18mins) (5:47mm), 5 miles (7:00mm)
T 10 miles (6:29mm)
F 11 miles (6:26mm), 6 miles (6:53mm)
S 30 miles (6:21mm)
S 12 miles (6:17mm)
Total - 122.3 miles (6:23mm)
Aerobic Efficiency 956 beats per mile average
Average Weight 140.9 Lbs
Average RHR 32 bpm
This week was again play it by ear given our little arrival last weekend but as it turned out I have pretty much stuck to plan thankfully which has resulted in me running more miles in a week than ever before! Antonia (we eventually settled on a name!) is pretty chilled out and she's been taking everything in her stride. Having a couple of weeks paternity leave means I can do all the stuff that my wife would normally do around the house, hopefully giving her enough time to rest up after the birth. She seems to be doing very well. Naturally sleep at night is a little intermittent given the little ones feeding requirements but so far it's all OK. Plus I cant really help too much with that bit!
I managed to get out for my first run after the birth on Monday evening and although I seemed to have a spring in my step pace wise, it still all felt a little lethargic, probably due to the emotional energy consumed over the previous 48 hours!
Wednesday was my first full session since last week's race and I felt a little trepidation after having to cut last week's short due to just being too tired. Would I be too tired this time for different reasons? No, not really. I think it went as well as it could as each of the 18 minute reps gradually got quicker and my heart rate was well behaved. The reps came in at 5:28, 5:27, 5:25, 5:25 pace so really really happy with that. I don't anticipate that to be marathon pace come the day but it shouldn't be too far away. I need under 5:40 per mile to be on for PB and providing nothing drastic happens then I feel I will have a good chance of obliterating that in a few weeks time.
Rest of the the week was just easy and steady running towards the Saturday Long run, the longest of the campaign and in fact my longest ever at 30 miles. I picked a route that essentially went down, flat, up, down, flat, up (you can probably see the elevation profile on the link above)! All was great until probably about 24 miles in when the last section of up was just about to start when it became very hard work. I kept plugging away and didn't have a doubt that I would get home OK but it's funny how your brain can try to stop you from doing such stupid things. The feeling in my legs on stopping was one of sheer bliss!
I was expecting my run on Sunday to be a bit of a sombre affair after the long run on Saturday but all went well and I even added a couple of miles on top of what I thought would be sensible as the legs felt so good considering!
Aerobic efficiency has improved again slightly this week but I think this is starting to plateau now meaning I am not likely to get any fitter ahead of race day now, which is three weeks away. Surprisingly, to me at least, my weight has still continued to drop with a roughly two and half pound drop from last week. I am being careful to not run at too much of a calorie deficit and ensuring I have sufficient carbs to fuel my training. Perhaps the extra x-training with the new baby has meant I'm burning yet more calories!
I would still like to get in another chunky week volume wise this week before starting to cut back fairly rapidly.
No comments:
Post a Comment