Week Commencing 28th September 2009

Monday
AM 90 minute long-run in Lake District 7:30/mile- tough terrain

Tuesday
AM 8 w/u, 7 x mile (60) all at around 77/lap but on roads, mile out downhill mile back uphill. 15 warm down
PM 45 Easy

Wednesday
AM 60 minutes steady @ 6:51 - huge hill then downhill before protracted flat straight. Really nice run with Carl, Tom, Cathy and Andy.
PM: 45 v. easy/recovery @ 8:08/mile

Thursday
AM 10 warm up, drills and strides, 20 x 60 Hills (90 recovery), 10 warm down
PM 36 recovery

Friday
REST- but ended up driving 7 hours to get home dropping Carl off in London. Sad training camp is over.

Saturday
PM 15 easy, 30 steady, 15 easy. K splits; easy (5:52,4:45,4:44) steady (3:38,4:19,4:18,3:57,4:00,4:14,3:42) easy (4:28,4:58,4:48,2:29)

Sunday
AM 15 w/u, strides Manuden 10k 35:44 2nd, 15 w/d Splits of (3:28,3:52,3:43,3:40,3:42,3:43,3:49,3:22,3:17,3:03) AVG 5:46/mile Really more of a tempo effort.

Total: 525 minutes running No biking

Overall a very good week though I drank a bit too much at training camp. Still got some "good training without going crazy" as DC put it and this was definitely a solid week. Everytime I finish that hills session I am pleased and the strength it gives me mentally really helps- doing last 5 reps solo was good. 10k was a lot of fun. Really brought to bear though that (even though I lost!) I'm not just able to win these level of races now but actually feel like I'm jogging through them which is a huge step up. Might have been interesting to see what would have happened had I gone hard from the gun - Lee reckoned I'd have taken him but not certain about that as he looked good. Really looking forward to my first Metropolitan League in the best part of 4 years next Saturday.

Race Report from Manuden 10k

10k for me this morning. Not an A, B, C or probably even a D race but just a nice jog in the countryside picking up a win if I could. Field of about 450 I think so bigger than expected. Had the club young 'un running whose 15 with a 35:mid 10k PB and Lee who ran 31:57 this year and potentially a lot faster.

Course was very hilly and a straight out and back. Was fairly sure that if I put the boot in from the start I could drop off Lee but that really wasn't the point so we jogged with Ed having a lot of fun (throwing water at each other, elbows, pulling vests, I swear if there was a 100m stretch we weren't chatting in I don't remember it) and another bloke who went off a bit harder then we overtook but managed to latch on. Ed commented afterwards that half of the race it didn't even feel like he was running because he was giggling so much at our antics. At 7k the other bloke tried to break clear so I went past and dropped down to ~10M pace with a 3:22 and a 3:17 for the next two ks. Lee sitting behind me and as expected with 300m to go he kicked clear leaving me to finish off with a 3:03 final k and total time of 35:44.

Average pace was 5:45 so pretty close to tempo with till 7k averaging around 3:40 or so per k I'd guess. Very enjoyable morning and nice to feel so relaxed running at that pace and feeling like it was jogging at TMP.