This was meant to be another hard week, but due to a couple of things it ended up being an easy week.
After last Sundays 21.5 miler at record pace for me, Monday i decided to have a rest day. On Tuesday I was still feeling it but by the time the evening came for my run I felt ready to go. As soon as I started though I realised my shoes had, had it. I was thinking this on the Sunday but it was confirmed that night. So I decided to cut it short to 3 miles as didn't want to risk injury at this stage.
I ordered a new pair but has not arrived yet so I am currently using my trail shoes which seems to be ok. On the Wednesday night I did my 10k. Then Thursday night at the club it was surprisingly quiet. Our group ended up being only 6 people. Apparently the reason for this is because the sessions are now up on the website and people don't really like this session. Some say its too short, others feel they get enough speedwork at the track on a Tuesday night. As we were doing 6 times 600 metres. The first half is uphill, second half downhill. I was pleased with how it went and averaged 2 minute 15 second pace which is bang on what is expected for our group. Friday I had a rest day. Then Saturday I helped out at the Park run doing the timer. In the afternoon I went for a 4 1/2 mile jog.
And so to Sunday. I have been debating with myself all week whether I should be going to the club long runs after last week. I was thinking that they do between 11 and 15 mile runs where I am doing 20 -22 mile runs so they are focusing their pace on doing that mileage rather than the my mileage. However I had a thought about it and its the only way I am going to get faster so I'll just see how it goes. I was pleased to get up early enough again to do the club run. The first 2 miles to the club were hard as my legs were really heavy. But once I got going with the other guys I was fine. This week we did the Parks run which was Pollok Park, Maxwell Park, Queens Park, Hampden Park (they count it, lol), Kings Park and Linn Park. When we got to the top of Linn Park the guys started hammering it down the hill and we were going 7.30 pace and didn't slow down much on the hill back up to Clarkston road. When we got to Sainsburys my Lochaber amigos and myself decided to do an extra loop from there so we didn't get caught up in the sprint back to the club. Towards the end of the loop I started to struggle and when we did the extra Braidbar mile loop, Steven and Jacqui upped it and I had no intention of even trying to keep up. When we got back to the clubhouse, I looked at my watch at it was 16 1/2 miles. So I had a loo stop and thought I only had to do another 3 1/2 miles and that is me. I did and went round the tolls this time by myself as Steven and Jacqui had done more miles before this time. I struggled even more but kept running until the watch said 20 miles and stopped. Even with the gutting it out I still finished in 3 hours 3 minutes which was pleasing especially with all the pace pushing in the middle! Plus it was a lot hotter than last week which no doubt contributed.
This is the first long run in lochaber training that I have used shot blocs and NUUN again which seemed to work. Also I used my new waist pack to carry the shot blocs and I didn't notice it at all which is good so will probably use it in the race if i'm not wearing my rain jacket.
So overall 39 miles this week, not what I had planned but still pleased with how things are going. Next Sunday it is my race for March - Alloa half marathon. I am looking forward to it and will be interesting to see how close I can get to 1.40 or even beat my PB. I do think its a possibility. So even though I had an easy week this week, I am going to do another one this week with maybe a wee bit more mileage during the week but it will all be at an easy pace and hopefully I'll have some new shoes too!
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