Running Camp

I was basically forced to take a week's holiday. Well, not exactly forced as such, but still having some leftover days from last year's allocation it was either take them now or lose them entirely, and as much as I like my job I don't think my present employer is in much need of unnecessary gifts, so home I stayed for a week.

Not someone to sit around on the couch all day (and daytime television is a particularly savage version of hell) I did a bit of running while I had the time. Ok, so I did plenty of running. I was basically an attempt to overreach for a bit and then pull back and let the gains sink in. The overreaching bit definitely worked, I was knackered around Wednesday, let's see if the taking it easy bit works - never a strength of mine.

The weather was really nice for the first few days. Well, at least the sun was shining, though it was accompanied by a surprisingly cold wind but it was enough for me to get a bit of a tan, which is obviously what's supposed to happen in your holidays, though it generally doesn't happen when you spend your entire time in Bray.

I did 82 miles this week, with a couple of long-ish runs (not quite 17 on Wednesday, 18 on Sunday), and felt like hell on Wednesday but surprisingly good on Sunday. The fact that I was down to 140.6 pounds after Wednesday's run gives you a clue why I suffered - it was over 5 pounds less than on the day before and afterwards. Running for over 2 hours in the sun can severely dehydrate you, by the looks of it. I know, what amazing wisdom!

I did attempt some sort of workout on Friday. Since a HR of 160 turned out to be too much last time I tried, I went to 150-155, while doing repeats in Bray's Peoples Park, alternating one loop (pretty much 1k) at pace and half a loop for recovery. I had modest expectations but it was even worse than I imagined - on the plus side this time I didn't fell like keeling over, but I was toast after 3 repeats, and the pace was barely faster than 7-minute miles. Jesus Christ, only a few years ago I ran entire marathons half a minute per mile faster than that! Admittedly it was after a fairly tough week, but still.

So basically my endurance as such seems to be coming back nicely but as soon as the legs are turning over a bit faster I start to fall apart very quickly. The one thing I don't want to do now is force the issue and whip myself into shape with a set of brutal workouts - that doesn't work, I've learned as much. I need to try and nudge myself along gently - like I said already, never exactly a strength of mine.