That’s a picture of Lola and Shea five years ago. Whenever life gets stressful, I think back to that time. While it was extremely exciting to become parents of twins, I have never been as exhausted as for the first 5 months of their lives. There was never a moment to sit down, never more than 90 minutes of sleep in one go. I wonder how we managed it.Therefore, despite being tired now, I know that I am nowhere near as knackered as I was back then. After 10 days or so of beautiful weather, we had a thunderstorm on Friday night, which really excited the kids. The air since then has been really humid, which really makes me feel tired all day, despite not running (and not doing anything at all really) yesterday. I ran 8 miles today to end the week on 57 miles, yet another record, but the mileage still has to increase by a good bit until I reach the 70 miles peak. I also did 10x100 strides today, which I realised I had always done wrongly. I used to do them with nearly half a mile of recovery pace runs between the fast bits. Well, Mike made me read those paragraphs again in Pfitzinger’s book, and today I did them with short walks/very slow jogs in-between, just enough to get the heart rate and breathing down to normal rates. I have to admit, they did feel differently, and the speed difference between the fast and slow bits was much bigger that way (which is important, according to Kevin Beck’s book). I have to stop taking so much advice from Mike, or he might start charging me coaching fees.
While I was running, a big insect, possibly a bumblebee, flew right into my mouth, but I managed to spit it out straight away. You'd think they'd have more sense than fly straight into someone's mouth! And three dog chased me, one even bit me on the calf, not very painfully, for which he received a kick from me. The dog owner just stood there, but with three dogs and no lead she couldn't do much about it rather than shout at her dogs.
Next week is a cutback week of “only“ 51 miles, which not so long ago (say, a month) would have been around my peak mileage. I feel tired today, but generally the first four weeks of training have gone much better than I could have hoped.
11 Jun: 8 miles, 1:08, 8:30 pace, with 10x100 strides
Yeah, Thomas, great training's happening there! I started doing walks between my repeats too, shorter but slower, and intervals came better.
ReplyDeleteAnd the babies..aww. Gosh, and no sitting down time! You can do any training!
The runners could write a book about the animals' behaviour! You could be the first!
ReplyDeleteDogs= Runners enemies, official!!
ReplyDeleteHate them!
Where was your HO while it happened?
You'll reach the 70s how exciting!
Way to rack up those miles, Thomas! Your babies were very cute - it's a good thing to remind yourself of just how far you've come. Keep up the good work and enjoy your "cut-back" week.
ReplyDeleteGood work Thomas! Enjoy the little 'break', it's about to get more intense, but nothing like two screamers... They are cute when sleeping though aren't they?
ReplyDeleteI had twins too, and recall a few nights when the 3 AM simultaneous feeding was just a tad out of sync! But they're both 9 years old now, and worth every waking moment I had to give up back then!
ReplyDeleteWell done on the miles and strides Thomas, that Mike must be a good influence. Just don't take his advice on apparel :-)
ReplyDeleteThose strides will feel more natural after a couple of weeks for sure. Cute pic as well.
Awesome training, stupid dogs, cute kids. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteOnly 51 miles? What a slacker!
ReplyDeleteI bet you never thought you would write the words only 51 miles all together like that.
Blogger needs a sound element/feature...too bad we can't hear the screaming twins. It's good that they grow up.
ReplyDeleteYour training is really coming along Thomas. I think Mike knows his stuff - and the Maple Leaf rocks!
Wow, I rally can't imagine two babies at once. It was bad enough having one with colic.
ReplyDeleteI haven't actually been attacked by a dog in almost 20 years--shouldn't have said that, now I'll be bitten for sure.