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The Middle Ground
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Body feeling good, hip feeling like it's moving well and is still pain free afterwards. Heart rate was apparently an average of 155, but I'm not convinced my monitor always reads accurately on these cold and dry mornings.
I plan to stretch well later, and possibly a short walk, too.
Had my email today to offer me options for my rearranged 5 mile race. Instead of trying to race on 27 December, I have taken the option to switch my entry to a different race - chose a 10k at the beginning of April.
Yes I got out over lunchtime. Was supposed to be 6 easy but I swapped in tomorrow's 8 so I could do my favourite countryside route and I'll do 6 tomorrow.
In bigger news, I've just entered the Milton Keynes winter half which is a week Saturday. They had to cancel everyone in the race living in tier 3 so it opened entries up. Chose an 11am start time as it's a 90 minute drive so I can set off at 8.30 so no getting up at a silly time.
1600m swim for me today. 5x50m kick drills (these are incidentally great for leg strength), 250m arm drills, then 1k moderate freestyle, and a 100m sprint to finish. It all felt very rusty, after not swimming since February, but I'm looking forward to getting back into it. The water heaters were broken, so the water was around 18°C - which feels a lot colder than it sounds!
Not hugely as such. It's schedule as usual through to Tuesday then drops off for taper and recovery, getting back to normal from next Wednesday.
Yes, I can imagine swimming in 18c would be pretty chilly. I have done back to back spin days, which I've really missed doing and just easy miles. 10K tempo run tomorrow. Looks like there could be any sort of weather for it!!
<span>Most importantly, no pain!</span>
DT: I imagine a week on Saturday will see the worst of the winter weather!
65 minutes, largely off road, today. Pretty foul underfoot for most of it. Longest run since before my procedure in October.
If everything is still feeling good at the end of next week, I might start stretching one run to 45 or 50 mins to start building back the long run. Does that sound cautious enough?
It was the most miserable running day I've had in a while today. Fortunately it was only a 4m recovery run though.
DT - a race! Excellent! What time are you hoping for?
Alehouse - good to hear you are back over the hour mark.
The race is run over 2 mornings so when you enter you select your day. You then select your start time that day and there are an umber of slots to each start time. There is afresh start every 4 minutes from 9am-11am.
So there are obvious risks, I end up in time trial, I end up caught behind 2 hour plus runners as the race goes on (though hopefully the field will be sufficiently spread out by then as there's only about 400 racing and the earlier slots seem more popular).
I have now done some research via 2019 results then onto strava which once I find one open profile I can access lots via flybys. They all seem to have the same theme-
1. about 350 ft of elevation gain.
2. Lots of comments about the ridiculous amounts of twists and turns.
3. Most gps measured it just on 13m, which may be because of point 2 above (it has a certificate of accuracy and licence and last years results are noted on po10 without any caveat).
4. The course has up and downs but mile 10 involves a pretty big climb by the looks and then mile 11 provides an even bigger downhill and it looks slightly downhill/flat in to the finish.
My pb in feb (82.11) I averaged 6.15 pace and that involved running about 6m around an airfield in very strong wind so I am hopeful I can sit at closer to 6.10 pace. I am a bit concerned about the loss of momentum on these twists and turns.
Controlled but fastish first half then let go 2nd half was plan. First 5k in 19.32 then second in 18.50 for 38.22 for 10k. 2s faster than I raced Telford 10k last December.
Hope you get better weather than we have had here today! Decent session from you today as well!
Sorry to hear that, AD. Make sure that you commit to the exercises, glutes in particular.
Spin first thing then a restful day. Weighed in at 10st9 pretraining. Last time I was that weight I was a teenager!
Alehouse, when I started with Lewis and we chatted I always said (having just run a sub 3 mara) my piei in sky dream goal is a sub 80 half. I think that and a sub 60, 10m (possibly also a sub 18 5k) move you across a line in terms of decent runner to very good. I'm starting to feel those times aren't an impossibility anymore.
Edit, Andrew, yes get the work done. I really feel shattered lunchtime and had to shoehorn in it when I just wanted to use the time to relax but I made sure I did my glutes and core class.
Just under 39 k for the week as I slowly re-build; need to listen to my own advice about doing the Pilates work!
Very leisurely half this afternoon for 47m for the week.
Along with glute exercises, I think I need to strengthen my quads to add more support and stability for my knees.
However, the exercises I've found online all feel like they are straining the very bit of my knee that is injured! Squats and another exercise (difficult to describe, but sitting with legs out straight and then lifting each leg) both result in clicking and discomfort in the knee, so I wonder if they are doing more harm then good!
Another 40 mins today, foggy but beautiful, and just over 7k, 80m elevation gain and an average heart rate of 157. Looking at the Garmin stats, the most encouraging one is that the left/right balance was 49.7/50.3, the closest it's been for quite a while.
Three runs of over an hour over the last 7 days with all the rest at around half an hour. Mostly off road and all well within myself. Gradually getting back to things but no rush.
Otherwise, cycling? Swimming is also good - kick drills really fire up all the muscles in your legs and glutes.
Onto day 5 of no running. Knee definitely feels better, but I am getting incredibly grumpy and grouchy! Does anyone else get like that when they can’t get out for a run?!