This was a testing week for me for a number of reasons.
1. I got Manflu. My wife and children have all been suffering, and eventually, I got it too. There was only so much time I could around the house in a gas mask, right? I just got it worse than any other human being who has ever had it. I was lucky on this occasion, despite having manflu, I did not need to all an ambulance and managed to stay out of A&E. Thank the stars.
Joking aside, such is the place I am at currently, that I would feel much worse psychologically and emotionally if I skipped a run in my training schedule, than if I took time out to rest and recuperate physiologically. I called it dedication, my wife called it stupidity.
So my Thursday, Saturday and Sunday long run were all accompanied by a very sore throat, the snottiest, fullest blocked nose I have ever encountered, and headaches that no painkiller seemed to be able to free me of. I ran through it all. The runs were not the most enjoyable and I am still not free of the bug, but I have definitely not made myself worse in my opinion and feel happy knowing that I have not missed any runs.
2. The wind. I wrote about a strategy for dealing with the winds last week. Dealing with it and using the winds as much as you can is one thing. However, the winds are going to slow us down if they get too strong, and my mile splits were getting punished and I was unable to keep to the paces I wanted to during interval sessions in particular. As I have said before, I am less concerned these days about how it appears on my Garmin. Honest guv’nor. However, I still feel that my effort levels were raised the same levels as if I was running the right pace, and my heart rate monitor tells the correct story. Howevuuur….
3. My heart rate monitor broke this week. It gave me a crazy, incorrectly high reading for one of the days and then died. So I missed a couple of days of using it. Ok, it’s no biggy. However, I like to know if I am pushing myself to the correct levels during training and though the last 14 years of marathon running has helped me feel pretty tuned in to my body, I also get it wrong sometimes. There have been times when I have felt like I was gliding and running with ease yet my HRM told a different story. Likewise, I have felt like I’m struggling, yet my HRM tells me I was not putting in the effort I thought I was – that is, my heart was not working as hard.
Often the reason we feel tired is not due to work rate of the heart. We may have stress issues, or psychological or emotional issues that weigh on us and effect us. However, there may be other reasons such as tired legs. I have learned to balance my cross training and resistance training into certain days in my schedule so that this is not a problem for me anymore, but there is always a chance that I might have an over enthusiastic day with the weighted reverse lunges that leads to a less than sprite-ly run the next day due to those DOMS.
4. There was some major rainfall last week. It meant that a couple of my usual routes were flooded and I had to detour, or splash around up to my ankles or tip toe around onto the banks or whatever. The result was that my rhythm got upset on those runs and again, my Garmin stats show that things were not text book being achieved as I wanted according to my schedule.
That is reality though, isn’t it? Those are my reasons and excuses for the week. However, all in all, there is a lot to be very proud of and happy with. I got all six training runs done, all my cross training completed, I was flexible enough to meet the challenges and heck, the wind and rain are making stronger and fitter for this flat, dry, Spring marathon races, right?
Anyway, here are my miles this week, 41 in total:
Mon 4M (35 mins) easy (8m45s/mile)
Tue 9M of 1.5M jog and strides, then 3 x 2M (or 13 mins – 6m30s/mile) fast, with 400m (3-min) jog recoveries, then 1M jog
Wed 6M (50 mins) slow (8m20s/mile)
Thu 1M jog, then 2M (approx 14 mins – 7m/mile) brisk, then 1M jog
Fri Rest
Sat 5M (42 mins) easy or parkrun (8m25s/mile)
Sun 13M (108 mins) slow (8m20s/mile)
I have linked up a couple of the runs to my Garmin connect if you want to take a look, otherwise, track me down at Strava if you want to see all of them. I’ll be back later this week with a great technique for using cognitive sports psychology, self-hypnosis and your arms, yes, your ARMS, to help advance your running performance. Keep tuned and happy running in the meantime….
