Calm Before the Storm

Took it easy for the rest of the week, had planned on doing a small bit more but legs felt a bit tired on wednesday so decided to rest. Took friday off aswell as I was travelling home. Hopefully the light schedule will stand to me for the Ballycotton 10 tomorrow. Weather forecast is looking fairly stormy so hopefully all will go well...

Tuesday:8.4miles @7.12min/mile @146bpm (strong headwind all the way, honest!)
Thursday:8.2miles @7.08min/mile @144bpm
Saturday:3.2miles @7.15min/mile @145bpm (grass)

Easy Week

Managed to get another 10 in on Sunday morning, took it easy enough - pace was up around 7.12 and my HR was in the low 150's. To be expected after Saturday's exertions. Total Mileage for the week was 62miles, down a little on last week because I took wednesday off.

Monday: Had the alarm set for 4.55am but woke at 2.00 and heard rain pelting off the window so I reset for 6.00am. It was dry when I got up but the car was well frozen so I did n't regret it too much. Managed to get out over here and get 8 miles in @ 6.57min/mile @AvgHR 147bpm. I always like to get under 7min/miles at less than 148bpm so I was quite happy with that.
Will keep the mileage down for the rest of the week as I'm taking a rest week after every third hard week. As a happy coincidence it fit's in with tapering for Ballycotton, nice!!

With the Ballycotton 10 (http://www.ballycottonrunning.com/) only a week from tomorrow, I decided to do my long run today to give an extra day recovery. According to my plan I had to do 18miles but after last weeks debacle I was a little nervous. Got a good nights sleep last night so that was a good start at least. Also picked up some powerbars yesterday to keep the fuel reserves up. Weather was nice too - mild with little wind.

Started off nice and easy, a little faster than I had planned but my HR was low so I did n't think too much of it. Was doing a 6mile loop and after the first loop felt fine. It was at this point I took my first chunk of the powerbar which I had divided into four. Second loop the inevitable slowdown happened but only lasted about 2 miles before the carbs started kicking in. Before I knew it I was onto the last loop and I subconciously picked up the pace (Eating 2 more chunks might have had something to do with it!). Felt strong and all of the last five miles were sub 7 minutes with the last being 6.31!! I know I should have held myself back a bit - hopefully I won't be regretting this next week but it did my confidence the world of good so maybe it was worth it! It's amazing the difference taking on fuel makes. I will try to experiment with different brands to see what works best.