The weekend was absolutely glorious (at least in the South East) and I intended to fully enjoy every minute of it. I actually thought for a second before heading out the door on Saturday whether I would need sun screen even it was that warm. I made the decision to swap the long run to Saturday as i was heading out for a social event with Tracy so I didn't want to run long the night after. I would do my hill drills on Sunday instead.
One difference to the long run this week was that I had recently treated myself to a new running pack - Salomon Skin-slab 5.
Feels like a second skin
My long run was a mixture of my local country park trails and some roads towards the last 5 miles. These runs are about time on feet at the moment and although that will change soon I have been enjoying a lovely relaxing 2.5 hr run each week. I switched off pretty much the whole time until I got around to 14 miles that I decided to increase the pace to see if the legs would respond. Indeed they did and I was coasting at 7:45 and 7:25 minute miles for the last two miles without too much trouble before cooling down. Another solid 16.4 miles in the bag. Good times.
perfect trails (just need more hills)
Perfect blue skies
After getting up on Sunday morning the forecast was for a sunny 19C. It was always going to be tough running during the morning as the kids were dying to get out on their bikes as soon as they come back from grandparents at 8am! I knew I could run later in the day before dinner and it was always going to be more fun playing with them and eating ice cream in the park. It was a great morning and quite relaxing to be honest even with the two kids running and riding around at full speed!
Later on before dinner I headed out to my local "hill" (I call it that at least) for my last hill drills session. As I started my easy warm up I kept thinking to myself that for the past 2 months I had been following a training approach with very little interruption. Both my attitude and results are starting to show so far I am feeling more convinced every week that this approach is working for me and although my ankle had been niggly and stiff on occasion during the hill phase it has not stopped me running pretty much on a daily basis. I have really learnt a great deal about managing myself running wise during the last 2 months and as I enter the next phase of training I am anticipating to peak for a race like never before.
The hill drills session was executed to the best of my ability with 4 x 30 second fast striding, 4 x hill bounding (about 2 -3 mins to the top), 4 x downhill strides, 4 x thigh driving (felt sick on the last one) and then an easy run home. 3 weeks ago I was struggling to do even a quarter of this but now I feel so much stronger and fitter coming off that I cannot wait to see what happens this week as I begin the Anaerobic phase
I am not quite a deer leaping over a fence but I am definitely feel like I have plenty of spring in my step.
I think I recognise those hill drills :)
ReplyDeleteI assure you they really do work. I can always tell the benefits even after a couple of weeks.