Happy New Bak'tun everyone, I hope you had a pleasant apocalypse. Our twins took the whole thing seriously enough to pack a survival bag, though that did not include any provisions for the adults ("sceptics don't get saved, Dad!"). The Hunger Games have a lot to answer for.
After Saturday's hangover had passed (I exaggerate - I only had 3 drinks at Friday's party), I realised that the world was still standing and I better get on with my training. I tried to repeat last week's tempo run under the same guidelines, namely as soon as the pace started dropping or the effort got too hard I'd pull the plug, no matter how far (or not) I had gotten. The legs didn't exactly feel the love during the warm up, but that's not a good indicator for the following workout as I have learned over the years. When I hit the tempo segment I felt decent enough for the first few miles but as soon as I reached the far point of my loop I realised that I had to face the gale force wind on the way back home, and predictably the pace started suffering immediately. Despite all the good intentions I did struggle on for a bit but pulled the plug after only just over 3 miles, significantly less than last week. Of course runners always have a good excuse when it comes to sub-par workouts, and I am no exception. The gale force winds interfered badly, the previous day's run might have been a tad too fast and surely yesterday's drinks didn't help. Actually, later that day I noticed an even better excuse, namely a sore throat that I hadn't felt during the morning but the germs responsible for that may already have made their present felt in my system at the time of my run.
In reality I won't lose any sleep over it, I had expected a better workout but that did not happen, ah well. It still was a decent enough session, especially as I added another two miles of tempo pace at the end, though that was slightly downhill and might have overcompensated for the headwind.
The sore throat was still there on Sunday morning but did not stop me from going out on my long run, once more around Caragh Lake. I kept the effort easy enough but the legs kept moving well over the long climbs. I picked up the effort a little towards the end. 7-minute pace is starting to feel pretty easy. For some reason I was bothered with a side stitch that took ages to work out after about 7 miles, but I think that may have something to do with eating a couple of cookies right before heading out.
And so I have arrived at the end of the base training phase. Tomorrow I'm doing my first hill drills session.
- 21 Dec
- 10 miles, 1:13:25, 7:20 pace, HR 145
- 22 Dec
- 10 miles, 1:07:37, 6:45 pace, HR 160
3.25 miles @ 6:16 pace (HR 165), 2 miles @ 6:14 pace (HR 170) - 23 Dec
- 18 miles, 2:11:23, 7:18 pace, HR 146
Weekly Mileage: 77+
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