Week 11 highlights:
- 54 miles this week.
- New 5k pb
- Another long run.
The miles are clocking up now, another 50+ week giving a total of 520 since I started marathon training in mid June.
Another Tuesday and it was another tough speed session: 3 reps of 3k at different paces followed by 1k recovery. Tuesday's are always the hardest session of the week for me as generally it's the only workout this it both speedy and covering distance; this week being 15k in just over an hour. I'm sure workouts like this help as I'm really pushing myself but when the alarm goes off on a Tuesday morning I'd much rather roll over and go back to sleep!
Thursday saw me back at Royton Road Runners for a training run. "Hill work" I was told. Oh goody, one of my favorite type of runs! :(
There were a couple of short'ish sharper hills which left us at the bottom of what is known at club as "evil hill". I've ran bits of this hill before but never as far as we did on Thursday. It's basically a mile of climb. This shouldn't pose much of a problem as I've ran up Ripponden Road from Oldham to Grains Bar a few times which I think is tougher. Didn't matter as I was slogging up Evil Hill! I can see why it's called that - it just keeps going over the horizon.
I've been "on tour" for parkrun day for the past few weeks and this week was no exception. A few weeks ago a new parkrun started called "Peter Pan parkrun". I had no idea where this run was but wanted to do it, just because of the name. It was with some excitement (no, really) that my good running buddy Mark suggested a road trip to Hull to do the run.
My wife Janet has recently admitted she might possibly enjoy running to the point of getting up before 6am on a Saturday morning to travel 90 miles for a 5k run.
Hull is flat. This is good - no hills to slow me down. But I really must learn to read the course description in more detail as the majority of the run was on grass. No matter there was still a good chance of a pb and maybe even sneaking under 19 minutes.
It was a fast course, even if the grass was leg sapping, especially on the third lap. Didn't quite manage to get that sub 19 (Mark did with a fantastic 18:50!) but given the number of miles I'm doing my main focus needs to be longer running. Still, a pb is a pb and I'm chuffed with it - this time last year my 5k pb was 21:34. How things move on.
It was pb's all round as Janet also clocked up a 5k pb of 38:41!
Everybody at Peter Pan parkrun was really friendly and welcoming, just like the rest of the parkrun community. The post run cafe stop didn't include a full English. But in place there were huge slabs of cake at just £1 a slab. I can't work out which was better, the parkrun or the cake. Either way a trip to Hull is recommended.
Next on my list for odd named parkruns is Rising Sun parkrun. It's yet to start so hopefully we could run the inaugural. I'm watching on Facebook and Twitter for more details!
So Sunday was back to long runs. I'd planned to do 20 miles, and when I'd finished I'd clocked up 19.5 miles in 2:33:14. There was no way I was going round the block just to get the Garmin to say 20 miles. It wasn't going to add anything to my training 19.5 or 20 isn't going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. I felt I could have carried on running even though I was feeling tired and was glad to put my feet up. The worst part of the run was at 17 miles, climbing up a hill only to hear the warning sirens for the level crossing going. Coming round the corner to find the gates down.
I knew once I stopped I wouldn't be able to get going again so I had to jog up and down to keep loose. It did look a bit odd!
Just five weeks ago to the big day, a couple of more long runs followed by a good taper ready and fresh for race day. Chester here I come!!!
I've been "on tour" for parkrun day for the past few weeks and this week was no exception. A few weeks ago a new parkrun started called "Peter Pan parkrun". I had no idea where this run was but wanted to do it, just because of the name. It was with some excitement (no, really) that my good running buddy Mark suggested a road trip to Hull to do the run.
My wife Janet has recently admitted she might possibly enjoy running to the point of getting up before 6am on a Saturday morning to travel 90 miles for a 5k run.
Hull is flat. This is good - no hills to slow me down. But I really must learn to read the course description in more detail as the majority of the run was on grass. No matter there was still a good chance of a pb and maybe even sneaking under 19 minutes.
It was a fast course, even if the grass was leg sapping, especially on the third lap. Didn't quite manage to get that sub 19 (Mark did with a fantastic 18:50!) but given the number of miles I'm doing my main focus needs to be longer running. Still, a pb is a pb and I'm chuffed with it - this time last year my 5k pb was 21:34. How things move on.
 |
| Mark and I on lap 2 of Peter Pan parkrun |
Everybody at Peter Pan parkrun was really friendly and welcoming, just like the rest of the parkrun community. The post run cafe stop didn't include a full English. But in place there were huge slabs of cake at just £1 a slab. I can't work out which was better, the parkrun or the cake. Either way a trip to Hull is recommended.
Next on my list for odd named parkruns is Rising Sun parkrun. It's yet to start so hopefully we could run the inaugural. I'm watching on Facebook and Twitter for more details!
So Sunday was back to long runs. I'd planned to do 20 miles, and when I'd finished I'd clocked up 19.5 miles in 2:33:14. There was no way I was going round the block just to get the Garmin to say 20 miles. It wasn't going to add anything to my training 19.5 or 20 isn't going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. I felt I could have carried on running even though I was feeling tired and was glad to put my feet up. The worst part of the run was at 17 miles, climbing up a hill only to hear the warning sirens for the level crossing going. Coming round the corner to find the gates down.
 |
| At the finish, stopping the Garmin! |
Just five weeks ago to the big day, a couple of more long runs followed by a good taper ready and fresh for race day. Chester here I come!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment