June 10th – June 16th
Mon: 30 min easy + 5 x 15 sec strides + 5 min.
Complete. 8km. https://www.strava.com/activities/11619959870
Tue: 15 min WU, 5 x 400 @ 90 (30/90 after last) 6 x 1k @ 3:30-40 (60) 15 min CD.
Complete. 84, 87, 83, 81 and 81. 3:29, 3:26, 3:28, 3:26, 3:26 and 3:23. 15.50km total. https://www.strava.com/activities/11628659505
Wed: 60 min.
Complete. 13.32km. https://www.strava.com/activities/11637096394
Thur: off.
Fri: 15 min WU, 4 x 7 mins @ sub threshold (60), 15 min CD.
Complete. Treadmill. 13.74km.
https://www.strava.com/activities/11651684455
Sat: 80-90 min.
Complete. 80 mins. 18km. https://www.strava.com/activities/11655992600
Sun: 90 min easy.
Complete. 20.38km. https://www.strava.com/activities/11664247094
The week after a race is always pretty pared back for me with Seán always giving me plenty of time to fully recover. I didn’t feel too many ill effects after the race and a 30 minute shakeout on Monday was pretty ideal to confirm that. I had planned to be using this week to prep for Dunshaughlin 10K but a change of schedule has taken place. Now the plan is to skip the 10K and, instead, give the National 5,000m a crack and try bring the 5K PB down a bit more before starting the marathon block. I am apprehensive about racing on the track as I have little to no experience of doing it, especially if I am using fitness to chase a time, but ultimately I don’t have much to lose.
Deciding whether or not to do the 5,000m occupied too much of my brain space this week, going back and forth on whether or not to stick with Dunshaughlin 10K or bin it for the track. And bin the 10K I did. I also binned a planned hill session on Saturday due to an impromptu day off on Thursday. I was to run the 4 x 7 minutes session on Thursday and was going to, right up to the point when I was putting my shoes on, when all of a sudden a blanket of physical and mental fatigue descended upon me like the dewfall from heaven. I resigned to spending the evening on the couch and was much the better for it the next day. Seán changed the schedule and removed the hills because he “didn’t want to put me in a hole”. He is a kind man.
The only session for the week was on Tuesday and I did this in a park beside the Lucan Harriers track. I’ve recently moved back to Lucan Village so expect some new/old routes and hopefully a response in training due to the variety in locations. There is a 1,100m loop beside the track that is pretty optimum for kilometre reps with small inclines and declines the whole way through, meaning you can’t build up a head of steam too easily and need to concentrate to get the legs moving. All went off without much fanfare and another session banked.
Saturday and Sunday were both easy mid long runs, with Sunday taking in most of the first 16km of the Dublin Marathon route, and both were ultimately non eventful. The week rounded off at 86.9km, a decent number off the back of a race and PB. I’ve been holding steady in and around this mark for the last couple months and that will bode well for the body when the mileage ramps up. Not long now!
Buckets of Rain 