The First Day

It’s a great moment in every Big Boy’s life: the first school day.

I could not possibly miss Cian’s big event, so I went along to the school, and Niamh dropped me at work afterwards. It meant I had to run home in the evening because there was no way to put the bike into the car with all the kids in it. It wasn’t ideal because I had planned a speed workout for Tuesday, and I usually feel quite stiff the day after a double. I made very sure I ran very easily on both of Monday’s runs. Interestingly, the heart rate was the same for both runs, however, the evening one was a whopping 26 seconds per mile faster, despite the same very easy effort. I have noticed that same evening effect before, but not at such a margin. I’ll still be a morning runner, though. The practicalities of life do not leave me any other option.

I had made very sure that I would take it very easy on Sunday and Monday to feel ready for Tuesday’s mixed intervals. This was a completely new type of workout for me, and I had been intrigued as soon as I had read about it in the schedules, months ago. It will get tougher, but today it meant 3k at HMP, 1 mile at 10k pace, 1k at 5k pace and half a mile at 3k pace. With all the negative experiences at faster paces in the recent weeks I had already decided not to get too hung up with the actual paces; if I would hut something like 6:40 as HMP, 6:30 as 10k, 6:15 as 5k and 6:00 as 3k pace, I would be happy.

Alas, the workout was hindered by the truly appalling conditions. I had woken several times during the night when the howling wind threw some ferocious rain against our window. Of course I still went out running, but it had to be along the Ard-na-Sidhe road, where a few trees provide at least a minimum of shelter. The road is very uneven, with a bad road surface and a few ups and downs, but I have run mile repeats on it plenty of times before in previous training cycles. I followed the schedule to the letter and only did 1 mile of warm-up, which meant I was still not quite ready when the alarm for the HMP section came on. I was struggling over the first k or so, but settled eventually. The rest period between the faster runs lasted only 2 minutes, which brought bad memories of some botched mile repeats. I did not feel good over the first half of the 10k section, but then, out of nothing, things changed. Without any conscious input from myself I started to relax all of a sudden, and the workout, which had started to turn into a struggle, was transformed. All of a sudden I was able to run faster with less effort; I settled into a fast but somehow still relaxed pace, and felt pretty good about it. I tried to repeat the same fast-but-relaxed style over the final two segments, and more or less got it right. The constantly undulating road didn’t help, but I managed reasonably well. I more or less hit the times I had in mind, even if they don’t match the times in the schedule. I felt pretty good about the workout, and am already looking forward to next week’s second instalment. That has to be a good sign, as it stands in marked contrast to how I felt about the mile or 1k repeats. At the very least I should get some more enjoyment out of my training, which has been lacking at times this summer.

1 Sep

am: 9 miles, 1:19:54, 8:52 pace, HR 131
pm: 5 miles, 42:11, 8:26 pace, HR 131

2 Sep

7 miles, 52:57, 7:34 pace, HR 154
3k @ 6:42, 1m @ 6:28, 1k @ 6:14, 0.5m @ 6:02