A fortnight's summer holiday has seen me take a little break from training in order to freshen up and allow the body to recover a little bit from all the strains of he first half of the year's running. It felt good to rest up and take it easy for a bit, but I am so happy to be back out and pounding the roads again once more now.
Week 1
The week leading up to my break, I tried my best to cram in as much training as possible, but seen as I was flying on the Saturday, it was a shortened week of training which saw me run each day from Monday to Friday before commencing on my week break Saturday to Saturday.
Due to it being a shortened week, the mileage was obviously affected. In order to try and counteract the negative aspect of this eventuality I decided to try and increase the intensity of each of my sessions and try running hard throughout every single training slot.
This week saw me complete a total of 44 miles - some two-thirds of my usual mileage that I have been recording through the summer season.
On the Monday I ran with David Taylor and Jason Barlow at the Wesham club training night - they pushed me to run at a decent pace and I managed a total of 7 miles with them at 6:14 pace, in addition to another 5 miles that I had done on my own earlier in the evening at 6:52 pace.
Tuesday was a track session which I completed on my own, with 9 x 800 metres at an average of 4:52 mpm pace.
Wednesday was a recovery run and I only managed 2 miles at 7:00 pace as I turned spectator, watching Moll running the Blackpool race for life. It wasn't a night that went to plan unfortunately as she ended up injured at around the 2k mark and we had to walk the remainder of the way! Fortunately she has since recovered from the subsequent cuts and bruises...
Thursday was a progressive tempo run with Affleck, running 8 miles of increasing levels of effort at an average of 5:44 pace, with a two mile cool down to complete.
As Friday was my last chance to burn off the remaining energy I had before the holiday I decided to chuck everything into a final 10 miler and got around my local route through the lanes at an average of 5:56 - not bad for a Friday night, the day following another hard session.
Saturday and Sunday were rest days.
Total mileage for the week: 44
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:27
Total mileage so far this month (July): 66
Total mileage so far 2016: 1820
Average miles per day 2016: 9.58
Week 2
In short, I didn't do much work!
Monday to Friday was pretty much complete rest - I didn't even do much swimming! Saturday and Sunday saw me complete my first tentative runs of the holiday, as I worked on a 5 mile route from the hotel, running 4.5 miles on the first attempt (6:50 pace) and 5 miles on the following morning (6:31 pace).
I found it hard going in the heat - even in the early morning, with temperatures hitting 25-27oC even at 7:15 in the morning! Not only that, but with humidity of in the region of 65-70% and being at a higher altitude to I'm used to back home, it was tough going, but the scenery was beautiful and I actually really enjoyed running in Turkey. I escaped into the forest most morning runs, and hit Hisaronu's hills, with the 5 miler seeing some 414 feet of elevation in just a short distance.
Anyway, since I didn't do much training this week, here is a picture of my most strenuous activity of the first week in Turkey - Camel riding with Moll! It was fun to try something new, and brilliant to get to spend quality time away from the stresses of every day life with Moll and the rest of my family who I love to bits.
Total mileage for the week: 9.5
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:36
Total mileage so far this month (July): 75.5
Total mileage so far 2016: 1829.5
Average miles per day 2016: 9.29
Week 3
The second week of my holiday saw me start to increase my morning efforts a little bit as I strived to try and ensure I kept ticking over and didn't lose too much fitness before I arrived home - especially with the amount I was eating and drinking whilst away!
I ran on Monday (5.0 miles), Wednesday (5.3 miles), Thursday (6.7 miles) and Friday (5.0 miles) and as well as the running I also swam a quarter of a mile each of those mornings in an attempt to bring my body temperature back down, whilst maintaining my increased heart rate a bit longer. This was an attempt to avoid the heat rash that I encountered last summer when trying to train in Malta.
Tuesday was a rest day for an excursion, while Saturday was also a rest day for travelling home.
On the Sunday I came crashing back down to earth with a bang as I went for a 16 mile long run with Affleck and I suffered badly! My average pace plummeted after mile 10 from a relatively healthy 6:25 pace to 6:38 by the end of it. Work to do to get back to where I was then...
Total mileage for the week: 38
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:30
Total mileage so far this month (July): 113.5
Total mileage so far 2016: 1867.5
Average miles per day 2016: 9.15
Week 4
No time to feel sorry for myself, I had to throw myself straight back into training, as I already had my eyes set on the perfect comeback race in order to see where exactly I am at ahead of the next round of training. Podium 5k was back this Friday and was advertising a stacked field and a race that would be streamed live on Facebook via Dave Norman's new brainchild "RunningLive" - if you get chance to check out the site, please do as it is a great idea and one that I really hope takes off. It is a great way to see how races unfold and what goes on around you, that you just cannot see or appreciate when you are running in the same race yourself. That, and it allows good publicity for the events themselves too.
So the first full week back was all geared towards trying to get onto that start line in some sort of shape, so that I didn't make a fool of myself by turning up completely unfit and rusty.
Monday saw me again run 4 miles on my own, before joining up with my club mates for a run at Wesham, doing a further 8 with Lee and Jason Barlow. I pushed myself to try and see what my legs would allow me to get down to and was surprised to hit sub 6 minute mile-ing fairly comfortably and peaked at 5:37 pace.
On Tuesday, an early finish at work allowed me the chance to get to the track early, so I had completed my session by the time anyone else had turned up! I managed 6 x 1000m off a 200m recovery. I never really pushed myself to my limit, but my average pace for the session was in and around 5:10 pace, so some way off my 5k pace, which was a slight concern, although as I say it was a solo session and without the adrenaline of a race day. That combined with it being my first session back made it a satisfactory effort.
Wednesday saw me tick over with 7 miles, with a further 6 coming on Thursday.
Friday was race night. The field that was assembled on the day wasn't quite as stacked as I had anticipated, which meant it would be a little bit more difficult to execute plan A - which was to try and get in a big group, tuck in and get carried around! Instead, plan B was simply to try and keep Ben Fish in sight for as long as possible. I knew that if I was in and around Ben, then I wouldn't be far off that elusive sub 15.
I managed to keep up for about 2.5k, before allowing a bit of a gap to open up. From there on in I got into a race for 4th place, which I narrowly missed out on in a final sprint. I finished 5th in 15:15, 8 seconds slower than my pb time, but considering the fact I am just back from holiday, I was absolutely delighted to record that time. It leaves me in good shape and a decent position ahead of my next phase of training. A few weeks of hard work and I will be better placed for another attack on that pb hopefully.
Saturday was a 8 mile recovery run, which was pleasantly not too painful actually.
Sunday was my long run day, and far different to the week previous, it actually went superbly. I ran a total of 18 miles at an average of 6:16 pace, my quickest long training run in a number of months. So perhaps the break has done me good, and a few more quality weeks of sessions could see me ready to hit some big races once again. Here's hoping!
Total mileage for the week: 67.5
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:29
Total mileage this month (July): 181
Total mileage so far 2016: 1935
Average miles per day 2016: 9.17
