Wednesday 8 January 2025
Week 1, Day 3: 60′ Easy
Since I told my Coach that I had entered London, the main thing that seems to have changed in my training is my Wednesday run. This has increased from 45 minutes to 60 minutes, and I’m sure will increase further as we head towards the sharp end of things.
Unlike some people, I cannot ‘see’ what’s coming. I use Training Peaks for my training, but Jo only makes the next 3-4 weeks visible for me. Whether she does this for everyone, I don’t know. But for me, it works.
I don’t really like knowing training sessions in advance. It freaks me out. I’m used to it now I’ve run with the Harriers for three years, but at Southampton AC, we would never know what was in store. We’d turn up on a Tuesday evening and find out. It suited me and so does this.
On the plan today was a 60 minute easy run. Usually, I’d want to do this before work. It gets it done. And by this, I don’t mean it gets it out of the way. I mean I have prioritised it before the daily stresses or worries of work take over and any lunchtime runs I might be planning fall by the wayside. However, it’s really dark and freezing cold at the moment, so I did do this at lunchtime to get some sunlight and fresh air.
I got out 20 minutes later than planned as I was putting off going out into the cold, but I did really enjoyed it once I got out the door. My legs felt tired at home after last night’s session. I wasn’t doing so well on Rob and my self-defined ‘fatigue test’. This measures your fatigue based on how ‘spritely’ you can get up the stairs. As we have a loft conversion and so have two steep-ish stair cases to tackle, it’s not unknown to be crawling by the time you get to the top.
My legs felt tired on the fatigue test (to be expected), but fine on the run. In fact, pretty fresh. I am really struggling to slow down my easy runs though. They feel easy, but I think they are too fast, averaging around 4:30-4:40/km. I think they need to be more like 4:45-5:00/km. Maybe I’ll slow down naturally as the miles build. Maybe I’ll have to constantly consiously slow myself down.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Given Monday’s are now strictly for rest, I headed to the gym this evening.
Hmm. Not my best.
To be honest, I flapped around a bit. I didn’t really know what to do, and I’m not great at the gym at the best of times, though I know it’s important. I’d seen a video from Eilish McColgan earlier in the week with some good exercises for runners, so I worked through them and did some leg press as prescribed by the Physio. The exercises consisted mostly of cable work, which actually was really good and it felt quite hard. But it wasn’t my best, or most focused session, and all things considered, probably wasn’t a particularly effective use of my time.