Go Hard

It's funny how after putting together a good week of training you start thinking about what could have been if only I managed that before my last race. I guess the trick now is to keep building on from my current week. This introductory phase is feeling pretty good so far. I get to mix up the running, get in some fast stuff, work on strength and not beat up my body in the process. That last part is the key. An overriding feature of my training at the moment is no session should floor me for the next few days. I should be able to repeat the same level of training either the next day or at most the day after. That doesn't mean all the runs are easy, some are quite hard at the time. The stimulus comes from a combination of variety and pushing the boundaries a little bit. An individual session won't make a big difference, but get a few weeks of consistent training that gradually raises the overall workload and the sum becomes greater than the parts. This approa...

After smashing myself at Two Bays , I have a much better idea how far off I am of where I want to be with my running. Time to put a plan together to make it happen. My conditioning is way down, my endurance is on the low side and I don't have much of a top end in speed. However, I am in a better place than that sounds. I'm injury free, and the middle zone of my running is quite good. I was able to comfortably hold a reasonable 50km race pace for 30km over some decent terrain. So it is a good starting point. Now the legs are recovered I can start working on race fitness. For me this will begin with about 6 weeks of what I'm calling an introductory period . The gist of this period is to work on weaknesses and make sure the body is ready to handle the harder training that follows. A good part of this is including a wide variety of training paces, especially those faster than my usual go to speeds . Volume for this will be relatively low initially and progress as my body ...

When I entered the Two Bays Trail Run I had big plans for training. Those plans didn't go as hoped. I've had more competition for my time and my running over the last few months has been well below the level I should be doing when preparing for a 56km race. Without a long run beyond 27km, little consistency and maybe 50km worth of running in any given week I still turned up. The weather was amazing, a light wind, mild morning, clear skies and gradually warmed up to quite hot as the day moved on. Despite not training well I couldn't miss this race. This is definitely one of my top favourite races. The organisation is spot on, the volunteers go above and beyond and the overall feel of the race is almost impossible to surpass. Knowing I wasn't capable of a good time, I decided I would take it easy and see how far that would take me in. Making a point to start away from the front runner I held back and cruised through the mostly single track in the opening 5km. I fe...