The sixth week of marathon training began on the Monday with an early morning hour on the elliptical trainer. Was feeling tired and the right leg was feeling a bit tight at times, but otherwise there were no issues.
The evening session has more than a nod to the forthcoming Dambuster Duathlon in mind, as I warmed up for the normal gym spin session with a progressive run on the treadmill. I don’t run much on the treadmill; when I do I tend to run a progressive paced run as I find them arguably more beneficial than interval sessions and easier to perform on a treadmill where pace is modulated more accurately than on the open road with undulations and junctions to tackle.
This progressive run was an easy reintroduction to the session: beginning at a leisurely 6mph, I increased the pace by 0.2 mph every minute until I reached 7 mph then by 0.1 mph every minute until I reached 10.5 mph. The legs felt good and I felt comfortable as I stepped off the treadmill and literally straight on to a spin bike.
I then got off the first spin bike as it was broken and moved onto another. Embarrassingly for the gym it transpired almost half of them had defects of some form or another and I was lucky to remount on one of the good ones. The good feeling from the run continued on the bike as I ploughed through the session with the legs remaining strong throughout. I was rewarded by a PB equaling 4.0 w/kg average and a couple of watts short of 260 for the average.
The Tuesday morning elliptical trainer session was a little tiring but I found myself pushing instinctively quite hard – still some energy in the legs. The lunchtime 10 mile easy paced run was a familiar tale of being a little weary in the opening miles before loosening off and running the final five miles or so comfortable at around 6:40 per mile pace.
Alarm bells rang on the elliptical trainer early on Wednesday morning, as the hour long session felt like an eternity and really hard work, if only to try and keep the eyes open with excessive tiredness. One of my daughters had been looking a little woozy for a couple of days and had complained of feeling really tired, so I concluded I had what she had.
I contemplated long and hard about not running at lunchtime but guilt got the better of me and before I had time to stop myself I was out and running. The first few miles felt truly rubbish, as if my mind was in a haze. The heart rate was really low, suspiciously low. I had 7 miles at marathon heart rate planned, as I forced my legs to pick up the pace at mile 4 it was obvious that running to heart rate was going to be impossible, averaging 14 beats below what I would normally aim to be running. Instead I was running to pace. It felt like an ugly run, the legs not really wanting to know and the form feeling pretty poor. That I averaged around 6:00 for the seven miles was relatively pleasing considering.
A good night’s sleep on Wednesday and I felt a million times better on the elliptical trainer on Thursday morning – the hour whistling by with no ill effects from the problems of Wednesday. The evening was the Grantham Running Club 7:30 paced run aimed at those targeting a spring marathon. As with my own run on Wednesday, we had 7 miles at pace planned. It was chilly, just above freezing, but with no wind and feeling fresh the run felt effortless – the only difficulty trying to keep the pace down. Once the main run was done I ran three extra miles to make it a thirteen and a quarter mile run in total – a decent midweek long run total.
Friday morning saw an easy hour on the elliptical trainer coupled with a a strength and conditioning session – almost as good as a day off really. Saturday morning’s run was an ambitious one and I wanted to be in good shape for it.
As with the previous week I had a long run planned with a parkrun stuck in the middle of it. Last week I ran twenty miles; this week I had twenty two miles planned. This meant waking early and being out of the house at 7:20 am, which the body didn’t much care for. The first three of four miles were fairly sluggish. I stopped at the Meres for a semi-planned pit stop and thereafter felt much better. The pace increased from just under seven minute miles to six thirty miles by the time I reached Belton House with a half marathon under the belt.
I had to use the facilities again just before the start of parkrun – something is bothering my stomach at the moment – and made it to the start line literally seconds before the off. I had the dubious honour of battling Barry the Beaver and a bunch of CaniX dogs for the opening hundred yards or so before the run settled down. Barry quickly lost enthusiasm, the dogs were keener but slowed after a mile or so. In the mix of runners with human power only, I found myself third behind a guy I didn’t recognise who would go on to come first by thirty seconds or so and Adam Madge, clearly representing Belvoir Tri Club for the morning.
Adam pulled out a five to ten second gap by the end of the first lap. I didn’t know exactly what pace we were running but could sense it wasn’t bad as the first mile was 5:41 and the second mile was quicker again at 5:33. I was feeling surprisingly fresh and on the bumpy back stretch into the cold headwind slowly brought Adam back to within spitting distance.
On the closing stretch back to the finish we began lapping back markers and I was able to catch Adam. Not thinking twice over whether to sit in his tow, I passed and made a surge to the finish. I didn’t look at the third mile split until I got home but it was 5:28. I had no idea of my final finishing time and contented myself with a strong second place finish.
I still had six miles to run so I ran another lap of the parkrun course before meeting a fellow GRC runner. We shared a mile or so back towards Grantham before I parted company and picked up the pace for the final three miles, back down to sub 6:40 miles. I finished the 22 mile run averaging 6:41 and feeling fairly comfortable. A good long steady run, all things considered.
Sunday morning was another Witham Wheelers Reliability Ride. The wind coming from the north made for a quick run to the club house. I knew that it would make for a tough final section of the ride proper as we would face a bracing head wind. The efforts of the Saturday run appeared to tell early on as I felt distinctly average, feeling the need to take my emergency gel well before half distance.
The gel helped and the middle section of the ride saw me helping near the front with a good section of shared pace making. I got a bit carried away on the hill at Wymondham. That over enthusiasm probably accounted for being dropped from the main pack a couple of miles short of the finish when the pace was stepped up a notch and I found my legs bereft of any remaining power.
The ride complete I headed home and straight out for a 10 km brick run. It felt very similar to the previous week – legs quite stiff and unresponsive for the first couple of miles but not lacking pace, thereafter feeling quite positive and able to maintain and slightly increase the pace in the closing miles.
Another week done, and another positive week of training. Week 7 coincides with half term so the workload will likely be reduced a little as opportunities to train will be restricted. That said, the following two weeks see plenty of work with F1 testing and a succession of races at the weekend, so there is the desire to put in another solid week of training before an enforced cutback.