My vague plan for the last few weeks has been to do 5K specific training. But then I’ve also wanted to keep my mileage in the week up to a round thirty and to do my weights twice a week.
The problem with trying to speed up as well as keeping the endurance going is that there aren’t enough hours in the week for me, especially as a runner on the slower end of the scale. My thirty this week (29.8 but I’m not going to quibble) has taken me just short of six hours. My two weights sessions are roughly an hour each. Eight hours is quite a long time to carve out each week with other things to do.
This week, for example, we were in Stratford upon Avon overnight to watch Kenneth Branagh play Prospero in The Tempest. Then I had a day in the Clwydian Hills with the ladies, for a walk followed by an afternoon lunch. We had two days of grandson minding because of poorliness and inset days. We also celebrated a friend’s birthday at ours, and Anne had an art stall at a local community fair. It was the first time she had displayed her art to complete strangers, so, of course, I wanted to go and support her.
I’ve said all this as a preamble because, for the last two weeks, I’ve only managed to squeeze in one speed session a week instead of the hoped for two. I have been keeping up the weekly mileage, and I have been doing my weights, so (in the words of Meatloaf) two out of three ain’t bad.
You might wonder why I can’t just go a bit faster during all those thirty miles to tick off the extra workout. It might be possible for some people, but for my snail-like tendencies, putting some genuinely hard efforts in somewhere means that I’m tired later on in the day. Therefore, I couldn’t do intervals on Monday morning because I didn’t want to fall asleep watching Ken that evening, especially as I was near the front. I could, however, happily chug along for ten miles to tick off a long run and a chunk of my miles, as my endurance is quite good at the minute.
I was pleased, however, that when I did get my one speed window, (on Thursday morning, early doors before the poorly grandson came over), my eight times 400 metres efforts seemed to take a tiny bit less time on average than they have before, so I’m generally moving in the right direction. If I can get a 27-something minutes in Parkrun next Saturday, that will be good enough.
After that, I will take a week off and then train for sixteen weeks to my marathon. Even though I haven’t got all my aims fully ticked off, this period feels like it has been the best bit of base training that I’ve ever done. I’m not knackered from my thirty miles, which is a good sign. I feel stronger generally, so hopefully I can keep that consistency going. The plan is to carry on doing one speed session a week when I am marathon training. Not only will it make my running more interesting, but it will also, hopefully, reduce the slowing down process that I think always happens for me when I’m training for a long distance.
Reading back over this blog, it seems my brain seems to already be moving on to the marathon before I’ve even completed my 5K. There’s still one week left to go so I need to step back a little and enjoy it. Forget about the future grind and just focus for the imminent brutal lung buster. Have I told you how much I love running?
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