Week 10: 20th - 26th Feb 2012

M AM 6.18 miles recovery (7:13mm avge), PM 4 miles recovery (7:05mm avge)
T 9.04 miles general aerobic (6:26mm avge)
W 9.66 miles, including 6X800m VO2Max Intervals (6:12mm avge)
T 7.17 miles recovery (7:15mm avge)
F AM 11.20 miles progressive (6:14mm avge), PM 4 miles recovery (7:04mm avge)
S 8.21 miles general, including 10X100m strides (6:21mm avge)
S 16.1 miles progressive (6:08mm avge)

Total 75.56 miles (6:31mm avge)

So this week was billed as a bit of a cut back week and to be honest I was quite pleased it was. After last Sunday's mammoth 13.1 miles at marathon pace at the end of a long run my body was sure to need a bit of a breather. It also rounded off a nice four week block of decent miles.

There's not much to report this week really apart from Wednesdays first VO2 Max interval session. These always tend to make my eyes water at the effort I need to put into them. Anyway, I did them on the road - I really think for the specificity of marathon running you have to be doing sessions on the road. I had scouted out a reasonable flat loop in Orpington that I would use which would be just the ticket. Off I went on the first rep and naturally overcooked it a little bit with a 2:21.7(4:45mm avge). P&D say you should recover between 50-90% of the time of the interval and so I had pre-programmed my watch for a 1m45s (about 70%) jog recovery and could always press lap should I want to start the next interval sooner. Unlikely! The next few were much more consistent 2:28.7(4:59), 2:26.1(4:54), 2:26.3(4:54), 2:27.7(4:57), 2:24.4(4:51). Although I was pleased when the efforts were over, I could certainly have done a few more if I'd needed to. So all in all quite promising to be running at this pace (avge of 4:53 per mile pace)  on what was a pretty blustery and windy morning. This is an indication of my theoretical 5k pace although I wouldn't fancy putting six of them back to back and then a bit more...

The remainder of the week just seemed to be fairly toned down running effort wise so nothing hugely taxing. I did have a good run out on Sunday morning doing a 16 miler in 6:08 pace finishing with some very strong miles towards the end at effort well below marathon effort.

And so to next week where I have basically swapped next week's scheduled week with the one after. So in effect I am doing P&D's week 12 next week and P&D's week 11 in week 13 if that makes sense. I did this so I could accommodate a race next Saturday morning. This is a 10 mile race in Battersea Park and I will be giving it a fairly close to all out attempt. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be capable of but this run will give me a very good idea of what should be reasonable to expect at London in eight weeks time.

After this Hania, Mia and I went to watch the runners at the five mile point at the Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon. The first guy was absolutely flying and must have been running around 4:45s (if my maths is correct which I doubt!) which is about a 62:30 half. I must be wrong though.... cant wait to see the results although they did still have the harder miles to come.