Week in Review: 4 - 10 Apr '16

Started the week off with my usual rest day on Monday and then did the 4x 8min hard with 2min rest interval session on Tuesday. I'm really starting to enjoy these intervals. They're really tough as I'm doing them really hard deliberately trying not to keep them all within the same pace range. The whole point of these is they're meant to be hard. I could do the first one a bit harder but I know that would have a considerable effect on the other three so I hold back a little on the first, but the rest are pretty much as hard as I can with the idea of trying to get them as quick as the first.

That was it for hard training runs for the week. I wasn't up for anything tough on Thursday so I kept it easy but long.

Had a good parkrun on Saturday too. Despite the high mileage for the week and the mud and huge puddles, I managed to run my quickest parkrun of the year, 13sec quicker than last week. I suspect I could have gone quicker had it not been so muddy and slippery - maybe next week.

It was a lovely cool crisp sunny morning today and a great day to head out for a 3hr long run. Kept my HR within range for most of the run with the exception for the massive steep Langley Hill and towards the end of the run to make sure I got it all in in 3hrs.

Experimented with my almond butter, honey and salt "goo" at 1h45 today. I'm not sure if the extra 15mins was enough to have an improved effect though.

On top of a great run, I saw loads of wildlife: ducks, geese, rabbits, squirrels, dogs, cats, various different birds, horses, alpacas and a badger, and he wasn't shmooshed on the road… he was alive and slowly making his way across a field less than 20m from me.

Today's run also made this week my longest ever week, by 200m :-)

I'm now at the point in my training where I think I can make 3 hour long runs a standard on Sundays. They're still challenging, but they're definitely starting to feel more comfortable towards the end as I do more of them and I'm finding I can easily keep the pace under 5:00/km for the entire run.

I think this high mileage, low intensity training is starting to pay off. Between one and three really hard efforts and loads and loads of low intensity seems to be ideal for me. I could definitely have run way more than the 120km I did this week and I think I may see if I can get in one of those highly respected 100 mile (161km) weeks you often hear top athletes do, in the next few weeks, just to see if I can and to see how I feel. Worst case, I'm absolutely shattered and I don't do it again (I don't think I'll get injured given the intensity). Best case scenario it works brilliantly and is the breakthrough I need. We'll see.

On a side note, whilst listening to the Endurance Planet podcast - a great podcast if you're into low-carb endurance sports and a MAF fan - I realised I've been doing my recent MAF tests wrong 😊. I've been warming up and then waiting for my heart rate to drop right down to just above resting before starting the test when I really should have been building up to my MAF range and then starting the test without the rest. This difference would explain why my first kilometer readings have been so much quicker this time round.