Nutcase

I’ve jumped back into my normal training week, which meant 90 minutes on Monday morning. Somehow I had forgotten what it means to get up early each and every day, and when the alarm sounded at 6 am I was initially completely confused why I had set it (plus I had been watching the Super Bowl until the early hours of morning). Once my brain started working, I got ready to go out. I got slightly delayed, because when I opened the door I realised how cold it was (about –5C/23F) and went back once more to put on an extra layer underneath my long sleeved top. The workout went pretty well despite my legs feeling very heavy initially (I think I’ve typed that sentence many many times). Once I crested the devil’s elbow I managed to get a real good rhythm going and I was flying along the road for the next 4 or so miles, until I remembered to do a few strides. I did them, but it broke my rhythm and I didn’t manage to get that free-flowing feeling back. It was still a good workout. My work colleagues thought I was completely mad to go running in “that freezing cold”. (Clarification: -5C is as cold as it gets in Kerry, usually). Maybe I should have pointed them to some other blogs, but better not.

I know I’ve just said I jumped back into my normal training, but I made one fairly big change today, because I swapped the tempo run for a hill session. When I started this training cycle I played with the idea of a hill phase, but left the decision for a later date. I only just realised that I have less than 8 weeks to go, and somehow decided that a hill phase would do me good, primarily because it strengthens the quads, and apparently that’s particularly important for an ultra. It’s not as if I jumped straight into a hill workout; I have been running the steepest hills I could find as part of my normal runs for many weeks now. Anyway, this was my first ever go at some of the weirder kind of hill workouts, like “steep hill running” or “bounding”, excellently demonstrated in this video. I selected a hill about 2 miles away from home; it’s actually a driveway to a couple of houses on the flanks of the devil’s elbow. I think it’s a private road, though there are no signs. I figured nobody would see me anyway, so it doesn’t matter. When I started the first repeat of running up with strange high knee lift, I initially thought “this feels too easy” and stupidly switched to bounding for a bit. I learned my lesson pretty soon. Bounding is a killer. Pretty soon I switched back to “steep hill running”, but after 3 minutes I thought I couldn’t take any more of that, did a few easy steps, and turned around. I did a few strides at the bottom of the hill, and came back for more. I had learned my lesson and just did the goofy high knees bit, and managed to hold on for about 3:30, before going easy again. That’s when I noticed that the road flattens out a bit further on, which would make it a pretty perfect hill for that kind of training. On my third repeat I managed to run all the way to that area, which took just under 4 minutes. I came back for a 4th time, but turned around halfway through, because I was rather late and decided that I‘d better get home right now or else I’d be late for work.

So that’s it, my first hill session of that kind. This was more to test the waters and give me an introduction to that kind of thing. Now I have to decide what I’ll do next week. With long runs, tempo runs and hills, the week seems a bit too short now. I won’t cut back on my back-to-back long runs, and I can’t do 2 hill sessions as well as one tempo run in that same week, so either the second hill workout or the tempo run will have to be sacrificed. I’ve got one week to decide.

Niamh’s battling a cold at the moment; she started to feel unwell yesterday, and even worse today. She’s overloading on Vitamin C and Echinacea, and so far neither the kids nor me have caught it. Let’s keep the fingers crossed.

At lunchtime I started talking to her about my run this morning. “You know Dianne, who lives up that hill? Well, this morning I did a hill workout up their driveway. I didn’t think anyone would mind, and I didn’t think anyone would see me, but on one occasion a car came down that road, presumably driven by her husband. If you see her today, would you mind asking her if it’s ok to train there once or twice a week? If they’ll mind, I’ll find a different hill”. Niamh's grin got bigger and bigger as I kept on rambling, and by the end she was laughing out loud. “They’ll just think you’re a complete nutcase”. “That’s ok, as long as they let me train there”. She promised she’d ask. Dianne's daughter is one of Lola’s best friends at school, which might make things easier for me. Poor Lola might have to live with the fact that her dad is the village idiot, though.

5 Feb: 10.5 miles, 1:25:26, 8:08 pace, avg. HR 149
6 Feb: 7.5 miles (est.), 1:03, hill work, avg. HR 150