Week 19: Getting serious

I had planned a run for Monday morning but as it was absolutely pouring down with rain I swapped my plan and went for a gym session, originally programmed for Tuesday.  At least all this rain means that it might be snowing higher up, good news for the ski stations.  Everybody had been getting a bit nervous with all the dry weather before Christmas.
I jumped on a static bike and road at 25km for one hour varying the difficulty on the machine.  I also did a bit of core strength work on the weights machine before heading for fifteen minutes in the hammam.
Since September last year I have been following a flexible plan of two or three runs per week and one or two gym sessions.  Now with my target race eight months away I have decided to set myself a proper plan.  I want to do two short, around 5km, runs per week.  These will be hill and circuit training to work on speed and strength.  Then I will finish the week with a long run.  This run will not increase by more than 10% per week.  The only problem with this is that if I respect the 10% rule I will be running 90km on my last long run before my race.  Possibly too much!  So every two months I will run the same length on my weekly long runs.  Then in the penultimate month before my race my longest run will be 44km, closer to my goal.  In the last month I don't plan to run more than 20km.  I will also try to go to the gym twice a week to work on core strengths and rest my legs.  This plan has developed from different plans I have seen on line and my experience over the last few months.  I may well have to adapt it but I think it is reasonable.

Tuesday, after a night of rain, the sky was clear blue.  I waited until the sun struggled over the hill and burnt off the mist in the hollows before going out.  I jogged up to the hill and did some hill sets.  6 x 30 seconds as rapidly as possible uphill, jogging down.  After a 3 minute rest I did six sets again.  I finished off by continue uphill for a while before jogging back down the road.  My objective was to concentrate on strength building.

After my mid week rest day I went back to the gym and did a very intensive two hour session of rowing, weights and bicycle.  I had a lot of stress and anger to burn up;  New Year always leads to soul searching about my path in life, and frustrations at work were the causes of these feelings.  The session left me feeling invigorated and ready to tackle the world.

Friday I woke up dreading the long run.  I forced myself out the door early and ran for an hour and a half.  It was not easy but I forced negative vibes out of my mind and managed 14km at a very respectable pace.  I seem to be slowly eating away at my runnng times.

I finished the week with a 5km run on the running machine at the gym.   I hate running on machines 5km is about my maximum.  I decided to do some speed sets. I also worked on my backside muscles having read some stuff about  Illiotibial Band Syndrome and the affect it can have on knees and hips.