Sunday 17th December 2017
This week the quality of my training was limited by the lack of places to run. My usual go-to route on the canal towpath was an ice sheet for the whole week and the pavements on the main roads locally were hazardous for the same reason. Weeks like this are pretty much the only time I ever wish I had a treadmill. Boring though it would be, it would enable me to run at pace on even terrain, something I normally take for granted. Yesterday’s planned session of 9 miles alternating hard and easy quickly became reduced to an hour’s easy running because to push the pace when patches of ice were still lying on the ground would have been foolish.
Still, the snow and ice have largely cleared now and I’m looking forward to getting my lungs working again instead of just my legs.
My Week
Monday: AM 16km easy / PM 9km easy (25)
Tuesday: 20km moderate (20)
Wednesday: 15km easy (15)
Thursday: AM 10km easy / PM 15km easy (25)
Friday: rest (0)
Saturday: 17km moderate (17)
Sunday: AM 18km moderate / PM 10km easy (28)
Sunday 10th December 2017
This week it snowed.
It started on Friday morning in the early hours and lasted all weekend with a just a few breaks on Saturday. Runners can train in all conditions – extreme heat, extreme cold, heavy rain, strong wind, but snow is the one that causes the most problems. Where do you go? If it’s heavy enough, as it was today, you’re OK as long as you stay off the roads and pavements, easier said than done when periods of snow tend to coincide with the times of year when daylight is hard to come by. Ice makes things tricky; even if you can find somewhere to run you might not be able to run hard enough to get a good training session in.
And yesterday a training session was just what I wanted.
The week was meant to be a taper week ahead of Telford 10k, due to be held this weekend and cancelled on Friday afternoon as a consequence of this current bout of snowy weather. Tuesday’s session was a long track session on very tired legs and Thursday’s was a 6 mile run with the middle two run hard. I felt great and clocked 10:02 for the two miles, feeling strong and as though I could have run for much longer at that pace. This left me excited for what I might do at the weekend and full of ‘what ifs’ the following day post-cancellation. I won’t have another opportunity to test my fitness in a race for another few weeks now and hope I can hold this good form until then.
My Week
Monday: AM 10km easy / PM 13km easy (23)
Tuesday: AM 9km easy / PM track session 16*400 with recoveries of 5*60s,5*45s,5*30s, all 68-72 (23)
Wednesday: 14km easy (14)
Thursday: 10km with 2 miles hard in 10:02 (10)
Friday: rest (0)
Saturday: AM 16km moderate / PM 8km easy (24)
Sunday: 18km easy (18)