Closer To The Plan

I almost hit all my training targets. The last week and a little bit has been the closest I have gotten in a long time. Which probably doesn't reflect too highly on how I have planned and executed my training over that long time. Typically I put in writing what I believe is the maximum I should do, but maybe that's just a cop out.

What was missed? A couple of easy runs were downgraded to regeneration as the legs did need a little more recovery. For the most part that covered almost what I needed. It got me through a good 84km week nearly unscathed. Just one little problem.

This week was meant to start with some hill repetitions but I woke to some stiffness and pain in one of my hamstring tendons. Given my past history and the glute pain last week, I took the safe option and skipped the run the day. Slotting back into the program the next day for a regeneration run seemed to have done the trick.

Looking over the last couple of weeks it suggests the riskiest sessions are the longer runs. At the moment they aren't crazy long, but the speed of them is up a little bit compared to the previous year. They are feeling so good when I'm running them. There is definitely improvement overall, not just in some speed and endurance, but more importantly in technique. My running flow is feeling the best it has in a very long time. So I'll keep on the plan making some mild adjustments along the way. If I can keep up the basics of what I'm doing then I except some significant gains further down the track.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sandy Point Half Marathon

Image
Any race that uses a picture of myself as promotion makes me think I should compete in it. Wouldn't want to disappoint the masses. Last year my race slow and cold over the same course. A time of 1:30:20, was disappointing and a kick up the backside to get to what really works in training. Since then I have put in a lot of consistent kilometres and have seen some improvement. I was definitely going to race faster this year. Based on my race results over the last few months the hope was to see if I could get down to near 1:24:xx. The weather was very different this year. Far from cold, in fact I think it was our warmest night in a few months. However, there was a Damaging Winds warning issued, with predictions of 65km/hr gales to slow things downs a bit. The winds hit, according to the weather sites: NNE averaging around 50km/hr with gusts of 76km/hr. That made for some interesting race tactics. Luckily the rain held off until after the race. For some reason I felt ready with only 1...
Read more

Fitting Together

It's interesting how easy it suddenly becomes to prioritise aspects of life. I have missed plenty of training in the last week, but for the first time in my life, it really, and I mean really doesn't matter. That's not to say I am throwing training on the back burner. Far from it. Of course I am finding it hard working out how life now all fits together, but I am thoroughly enjoying the process. Training is now just part of the puzzle. What was a very easy load a couple of weeks ago, is now just manageable. This is what I anticipated. As things settle down and I work out of few things the training load should again become much easier. At the moment it looks like I will be able to get in all the key sessions, so in reality it is going fine.
Read more

The Gorge

For work I am currently stationed away from my normal branch. This is a recent roster change that I am not too happy about due to a number of reasons that I won't go into here. The good thing is that it gives me different roads to ride on when commuting. Nothing like a bit of variety to break things up. One particular bit of terrain that I now get to cover is known as the Gorge. It is exactly as the name suggests. The road that takes you into the Gorge is simple. One side is a very wide bend, that could almost be thought of as a straight road. The other side involves a couple of reasonable bends, which wouldn't normally be an issue, but can be when hitting speeds of 60km/hr on the descent. I want to make it clear that the Gorge is far from the toughest of climbs, while quite steep on both sides it is relatively short. So what is it about the Gorge. For me it has provided a good bench mark for my cycling fitness. Back when I first started on the bike it took all my ef...
Read more