Thursday 30 April 2015

It's all on the wrist.

Yesterday was one of those days that could have made or broke my summer. After completing the half marathon last Sunday, I rightly or wrongly took my foot off the gas for the bones off a week. I had been sleeping even worse than usual which didn't help the motivation and I think I as had been looking forward to some down time after the marathon this played into it as well.
So I decided to make a fresh start Monday, with a session of 400's. To cut a long story short it didnt happen but I managed to get 10 miles easy in. I followed this with an easy 45 minutes on Tuesday with the view to do a proper session of 400's yesterday (Wednesday).
As the day wore on though I was feeling less and less inclined and was looking for all sorts of excuses to get out of it. I ended up writing 'mansuit' (or HTFU in cycling speak!) on my hand to try and bring my head back to the right place during my weaker moments!
When I got home from work I had a brainwave - why not do mile repeats instead of 400's? 6x1mile is always easier than 16x400m. I also decided to set the bar low, start off with a 6.00 pace & stay there if necessary! I think part of the problem after Limerick last year was expecting too much too soon, and despite not having 26.2 miles in my legs I still thought it better to aim low.
I got through the first in 5.47, feeling grand and as a result my recovery was probably the shortest ever, being a tad under 2 minutes. At about midway through the second I decided under 5.40 for all of them would be a nice target to aim for. The next 3 were all 5.38 although the effort was increasing but was still reasonably comfortable. Recoveries were still short - just over 2 minutes. I managed to pick up the pace over the last 2 (due in no small part to some fit4life ladies turning up) with a 5.34 & a 5.30 dead for the last - pushing hard over the last lap. OK it was slower than I was back in Malaga the week before Ballycotton but hopefully it's the first step towards a productive summer, so long as I keep writing things on my wrist! Conditions were pretty close to perfect btw.
Have slept OK all week, until this morning so did a ridiculously slow 4 miles to work at 4am!. Havent crashed and burned yet though. Pacing the 1.30 half marathon group in Limerick on Sunday and as tomorrow is a day off here I will try and go to the track again in the morning. But we shall see...
Monday:10miles @7.31 HR135
Tuesday: 6.3miles @7.26 HR134
Wednesday: 6x1mile (12miles total)
Thursday: AM: 4miles @8.36 HR120

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