The Long Run

Friday night did not go well. I had gone to bed early, and by 10 o’clock I had been sleeping like a baby. Unfortunately, by 2 am I was awake and could not fall back asleep. The noise didn’t help, from my right came the sound of the wind howling outside, and from my left came the sounds of Maia sleeping rather noisily. But I think the main reason was the nearly Full Moon, I often have troubles sleeping around that time. I kept watching the minutes on the clock tick by, and no position in bed would result in sleep. The alarm was set for 5:15, because I wanted to run 17 miles, but after 2 and a half hours of lying awake I had enough and got up to run at 4:30 in the morning. Despite a heavy cloud cover it was fairly bright outside, but the strong winds made a loop around the lake a bad option and I chose to run the Devil’s Elbow loop, my usual fall-back option. It includes a murderous climb up to a ridge (as can be seen on the chart), but has a much gentler gradient on the descent, which is why I always run it the same counter-clockwise direction. I wanted to take it reasonably easy but the legs started out at sub-8:00 pace, and never let up. During the first loop I had a little voice whisper in my ear “you have enough time for 20 miles!”, but I ignored it. It became louder during the second loop, and when I got back home after the planned 17 miles I automatically turned around again for an out-and-back section to make up 20 miles. I thought I would feel completely shattered afterwards, but actually I felt great. I was not exhausted during the day, just extremely hungry, and I continued to eat every single piece of fruit I could get my hands on.

Niamh had offered to come and collect me after work, but I declined the offer. I could have gotten a lift home from a colleague, but I was too stubborn. For some reason I really wanted to run home, and that’s what I did. I took it easy, but was surprised how easy those extra 5 miles felt. It seems there’s nothing wrong with my endurance.

I took it very easy on Saturday, just 6 relaxed miles, and a lot of rest. On Sunday I expected to feel sore from the long effort, but the legs were fine. I decided to add a few faster miles, not threshold pace, but faster than my usual miles. I picked 7:30 pace as my target, for no particular reason other than that it was achievable without straining too much. The lesson was that while my endurance is in good shape, my stamina needs some improvement. I managed 6 miles at 7:23, which is pretty much the pace I ran the Loch Ness marathon last October. I managed those 6 miles without falling apart, but it was definitely more than marathon pace. In fact, I was amazed that I used to be able to hold that pace for over 3 hours. But, looking back at the last few weeks, I am more than happy with the way things are going. My heart rate has gone down while my mileage has gone up and to top it all up the pace has improved while the effort has remained steady. Things are going splendidly! The downside is that the ultra is only 6 weeks away. I just know that I will feel better with each passing week, and that the race will come a little too soon for me, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I will have to decide how much time I will leave for the taper. Because of the enforced break in January I am tempted to cut it from 3 weeks to 2 to cram in more training, but that may be the wrong thing to do. I’ll think about it some more.

My mileage this week was rather high, but that was because I ran no less than 4 times in the evening (that's 3 times more than ever before). This was a once off.

22 Feb

am: 20 miles, 2:38:23, 7:55 pace, HR 152
pm: 5 miles, 43:23, 8:40 pace, HR 141

23 Feb

6 miles, 49:34, 8:15 pace, HR 142

24 Feb

10.2 miles, 1:19:18, 7:46 pace, HR 157, with 6 miles in 44:17 (7:23 pace)

Weekly mileage: 93.7 miles (in 11 runs)