Week Commencing July 16th 2012

First one in a while - sorry about that. Life + injury when I took a tumble.

Monday: 60 steady with Chasers including d+s (drills + strides) (~6:45mm)
Tuesday: Rest day
Wednesday: 80 easy + d
Thursday: wu + d, 45 minutes @ 5:58mm (Claphan Common 11:24,11:32,11:14,10:24 AVG-11:08), wd
Friday: 60 easy with last 10 minutes of diagonals.
Saturday: 30 minute shuffle with Hayley AM; wu (d+s), 2 x 2 laps hilly tempo loop at MP off 3 minutes (16:30, 16:34), wd PM
Sunday: 1:40 long run (~7:30mm)

 Summary: Good progress this week and can feel the volume getting back to a decent level.

Thursday's MP effort with Hayley and Graeme was a real breakthrough run on the path back - was meant to be slightly slower at the start but felt really good and very easy over first 3 laps with the last lap at 5:36mm being a hard push. Think I'll be doing more of these efforts with the first half hour or so at 6mm+ and then gradually dropping the pace to MP rather than in the past where I've probably done MP runs a bit fast.

Friday's diagonals was a really nice bit of speedwork that I had read about but hadn't actually tried. It's basically just striding the diagonal of a football pitch and then jogging up the side (or the end if you're fit...) before going again. Racks up a lot of strides very quickly without pushing the body very hard. Good speedwork for marathoners...

Saturday was a deliberately slightly easier effort as it was in the heat for the first time and with Hayley. It's over a very undulating XC loop which works the body very hard. Just after running 16:07 at National 12 stage I ran a couple of laps here at notional MP effort in about 8:30 (as opposed to 8:15 per lap now) and it did feel easier this time I think which is a positive sign.

Nice to get back to 1:40 for a Sunday long run. Pace wasn't fast (~7:30) but after two weeks of easy first halfs before a 20 minute MP effort at the end it was nice to keep a more steady pace. Need to either get the pace down a little in the long run or put the run over some hillier terrain.

No Core or Climbing this week. Couple of factors slightly messed up plans but going to both this week. Side effect of the more regular strides seems to be that both at 6mm and 7:30mm my stride feels slightly awkward and very slow.