Week in Review: 18 - 24 Apr '16

After last week's record total of 134.2km, I stepped off the gas a bit this week, cut down the mileage and threw in a few more rest days. No running on Monday, Friday or Saturday, but good quality runs on the other days.

I'm really starting to enjoy the 4x 8min interval sessions. I was a little tired going into Tuesday's session and ended up running each of the intervals at a more consistent pace that was still incredibly challenging. Going to keep doing these. What is surprising is the easy run I do on the Wednesday after the 4x 8min interval sessions. They feel to light and fluid and I actually run at a pretty good pace for an easy run. The perception of effort is no where near what the pace would suggest it should be.

Today I decided to change things up a bit on my long run. Instead of the standard easy long run, I split the run into three. I ran the first hour under my MAF range, the middle hour and fifteen minutes within my MAF range and then picked up the pace for the final part of the run. Felt really good through the run and was quite surprised how good I felt towards the end too. I think I'm going to experiment with finishing my long runs with a bit of faster running, eventually bringing it up to marathon pace.

All wasn't rosy with today's run. I noticed a little twinge on my left ankle area. It's the same niggle I felt on my right leg earlier in the year and I think it's definitely tied to my form. Concentrating on smaller strides under my centre of gravity takes the pressure off and the niggle disappears. I'll see how it goes this week, but I may need to drop the mileage in favour of more pace as I know this helped tremendously with my right leg.

Watching the London Marathon whilst writing this and kind of wish I was there this year. Maybe next year, though Boston is tempting.