With my left hamstring at me I should have taken today off

I have customers over, and I was fitting in this run, so when I found the pace hard I gave up!

The schedule was for a 25 min tempo run, I’m not sure what it became
Splits:
Mile 1: 7:58 (Warmup)
Mile 2: 6:45 (Tempo)
Mile 3: 8:26 (Cooldown) – this was 0.52 of a mile

I run from the office to the Rugby pitch and was running around it – I just couldn’t keep going.

Distance: 3.86 miles
Time: 32:21
Average Pace: 8:23 min/mile

Left Hamstring at me – The 18 mile yesterday killed me, definitely a hydration problem. I really needed more water at mile 12 and 15

After the hard intervals yesterday I had my first cold bath – I was hoping the cold after stretching and before my shower would have me ok for today.

It was another hard day

Going to bed last night I had a feeling today would be hard, so I had a bath and did a good bit of stretching!

This morning I was in no hurry to go for my run (I need to get out of this habit)

I got up around 8am, had my breakfast (cornflakes and readybreak) washed down by a pint of water with a Berocca Boost, 1000mg vitamin C and a High 5 Zero. Then I had another pint of water with a scoop of lean greens. Back to bed at 8:30 to read tick tock ten with a cup of coffee.

I really was on a go slow, because when Brooke asked me to watch Dr. Who with her I agreed.

I was out the door at 11:15 for my run.

The first few miles were ok, I was very aware I wanted to keep the pace just under the 8 min/mile pace so as to conserve as much energy as possible – I knew the last few miles would be hard and they were.

I didn’t bring enough water with me, I was dreaming of water for 3 or 4 miles before I got home just after 15 miles, and I drank a few glasses before heading back out to finish the 18. luckily two other runners were going in the same direction as me, and I joined them 1/2 a mile in and stayed with them until 16.8 miles before turning around to go home. The last mile was hard and as soon as 18 appeared on the watch I was walking the last few meters home.

The stats:

Average Pace 8:16
Duration: 2h 30m 55s
Distance 18.26 miles
Average Heart Rate: 126 bpm

Recovery: I was in pain when I got in the door, I really wasn’t happy.
I drank a protein shake followed by a pint of water with a high 5 zero while I was stretching. Stretching was painful.

I then got into a cold bath, amazing after the cold bath (followed by a hot shower) my legs were ok!

I then went on a 4 mile walk with Brooke through the Regional Park to test out my new trail runners. Brooke even made me run a few times on the trail, and while my legs were tired I managed a small bit of running. The walk of 4 miles took 1.5 hours as we through stones in the water etc.

The walk was great and I think combined with all the water / high 5 zero I consumed I’m in good shape for my recovery run tomorrow.

Oh my god, these were hard – I’d actually say impossible,

The target was 10 min warm up, followed by 5 repeats of 1KM in between 3:20 to 3:25 recovery was until my heart rate dropped to 120bpm

I did a small bit more for the warmup, to get to me to Regional Park Rugby field (I paused the watch as it was programmed for the entire workout) After I got to the rugby field I stretched and I was really stiff – I think the physio yesterday may have worked on muscles which needed more work (or not as much)

The first lap was really hard, and to do 1km in 3:25, means running at 5:30 min/mile pace I couldn’t get my pace down to this. (1km is 0.62 miles) the best I could do was 6 min/mile pace. and I only got slower.

This was really really hard, I have 2 thoughts,

1. The pace: Either Peter made a mistake with the pace, or he just wanted me to run as fast as I could (VO2Max training) and he didn’t expect me to maintain the pace.
2. I wasn’t recovered enough from the 10 Miler on Sunday to push this (I actually think I could get up to 5:30 pace for just a 1/2 mile)

The details of the splits speak a story, but what they don’t say is I paused the watch for a while (no idea how long) twice to get my breath back, 120 bpm of a recovery just wasn’t enough.

This morning I meet with Peter for Physio – I needed to flush my legs after the race last weekend. Even though I was in great form getting going on the run was hard, and I feel I went a bit too hard.

The run was to be 45 minutes easy, so I decided I’d run 5 miles, I turned out I completed it in 40 minutes

Distance: 5.02 miles
Time: 40:55
Average Pace: 8:09 min/mile
Average Temp 22.3 C
Average Heart Rate: 125 BPM
Max Heart Rate: 138 BPM
Average Run Cadence 178 SPM
Max Run Cadence 190 SPM
Average Vertical Oscillation 9.7 cm
Average Ground Contact Time 241 ms
Average stride length 1.11m

I was thinking of doing something easy tonight after Coaching the Ballincollig AC Kids, but the workout tonight was great and there is no need for me to go out again.

We started off with some dynamic stretching (about 15 minutes) followed by some strides (sprinting)
Then we went into a ladder workout

1 min slow
1 min fast
1 min slow
1 1/2 min fast
1 min slow
2 min fast
1 min slow
2 1/2 min fast
1 min slow
3 min fast
1 min walk
1 min slow
1 min fast
1 min slow
1 min fast
1 lap slow

followed by 15 minutes of stretching

I ran (paced) the cross country girls – they are fast!

I hadn’t worn the heart monitor, as I felt it would be an easy session!

Next week Mags will not be there and I’m running the session.