Week in Review: 13 - 19 Jun '16

What a week of running!! Topped out at just short of 130km for the week including a race in which I came third!

I started the week off with the usual recovery run on Monday and then a moderately long run on Tuesday with 10x 100m strides with a full recovery walk between each. I did contemplate skipping the strides due to Wednesday's race, but decided against it as I didn't think they'd have that much of an impact.

Wednesday was scheduled to be one medium long run, but as I'd already entered the Forest Five I opted for an hour run in the morning, a long warmup, the race and then a short cool down to get the total planned for the day.

The race itself went way better than expected.

I've not run the Forest Five since 2012 and the route has changed slightly so I didn't know what to expect other than it was still a little undulating and still had a relatively steep valley just after 4km, so I threw caution to the wind and went for it.

I ran the first kilometre quite conservatively and then started to push things and slowly pick my way through the crowd. Turned the corner to the big hill and found myself in 4th place with the next guy (Jock Itch on FetchEveryone) already half way up. I like to think I'm quite strong on steep hills so I powered through the valley and definitely made ground on Jock. I then settled down for the next three kilometres to give my legs a bit of a chance to recover. Despite holding back, I still managed to make up some ground on Jock and had him well within striking distance come the final kilometre, and strike I did.

The last kilometre is mostly downhill and a fantastic run into the finish. As we turned into the final straight I unleashed the beast and flew passed Jock with about 300m to go and pulled a good five second lead on him.

I flew across the finish line feeling absolutely fantastic and very pleased with my performance and strong finish. After the race Jock said he'd seen me finish strong in other races so was expecting me to blitz him on the final straight 😊.

This is still a great offroad race and Wednesday's race was a new 5 mile / 8k offroad PB. It was also my second podium finish (no prize though 😢).

Update: There was a prize for third after all. I received a £25 voucher in the post a few weeks later.

The rest of the week was back on schedule though Saturday and today's runs were a slightly affected by too many beers - I really need to stop enjoying beer so much.

All in all a great week of training with a brilliant performance in the middle of the week. I'm only three weeks in and this is definitely working out. I think ensuring most of my running is at of below MAF is definitely ensuring I'm not over-training and still feeling great.

Next week's going to be an interesting week… I'm off to Singapore for a conference. A combination of early starts and the heat and humidity will make it tough to get in the miles, especially if I enjoy the beers and company too much. I'll definitely need to hold back and be good. I also hope to get down to the East Coast Park parkrun on Saturday before the GitHub Patchwork I'm hosting with some of my colleagues.