Friday, April 12, 2013

And Miles To Go

Rebuilding your conditioning after the racing season is not everyone's favourite time of the season, but I'm not complaining. I believe that a structured training plan with periodisation is highly beneficial; I certainly attribute my continuous improvements over the last few years to that kind of training. The immediate recovery from Tralee is over, now it's time to put in mile after mile after mile, don't try to go too fast and let the aerobic system build yet another layer on top of all the other ones already there.

Tralee was almost 4 weeks ago, and I think I can finally feel the legs coming round. Running has felt a little bit like a struggle at times recently but this morning I finally ran 10 miles entirely on autopilot, and I do take that as a positive sign.

Unfortunately I have pretty much lost faith in my HRM; I don't use it to pace myself but I do use it to roughly monitor my progress over the weeks, and inconsistent readings are no good. For years it's been the case that Polar do good HRM but their GPS sucks and Garmin do good GPS but their HRM sucks, and it looks like nothing has changed.

March was the coldest one in recorded history, but I was perfectly happy with the conditions. I prefer cold dry days to "mild" wet ones any time. This morning was a case in point; the temperatures have risen sufficiently for me to run in a short-sleeved t-shirt for the first time in ages, and while that felt borderline okay at the start I did not exactly feel comfortable once the rain started. The weather forecast for the weekend and the following days isn't exactly promising. I don't think we'll be organising any outdoor BBQs any time soon.

From a training point of view, missing Connemara was almost certainly a good thing, now that my legs are well on their way to recovery I can start putting on some decent amount of mileage, which will then hopefully see me through those long races I have planned for the summer. I am really looking forward to those - the pleasant anticipation makes those long training miles in the cold rain bearable.
9 Apr
8 miles, 59:23, 7:25 pace
10 Apr
10 miles, 1:15:53, 7:35 pace, HR 147
11 Apr
8 miles, 59:15, 7:24 pace, HR 149
12 Apr
10 miles, 1:14:11, 7:25 pace, HR 148

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