This week saw me continue my build up ahead of Ribble Valley 10k with a fairly solid week of training. Although I didn't manage to motivate myself to do any of he early morning runs that I had intended on doing, I did still get a decent bit of mileage in each day, and it was all at a fairly decent rate too.
On Tuesday, feeling slightly leggy and tight in the hamstrings, I decided to avoid the track and so instead I did a hill session similar to the one from the previous week, but increasing the amount of reps and intensity of each one slightly. Doing 10 x 2 minute reps off a 60 second recovery, I averaged a pace of around 5:12 throughout and approximately 600 metres each time. I was particularly happy that I managed to maintain my pace right the way through the session, even when the lactic burn started to set in during the final few reps. According to my tomtom watch, I climbed around about 650 foot in total - so around 65 foot per rep, so hopefully this might help strengthen my legs in preparation for the undulating nature of the Ribble Valley course.
On Thursday I did a 2 x 2 mile session, off a 5 minute jog recovery, around Preston Docks. This is a tried and tested effort for me in the build up to 10k races now, as it has seemed to work well for me in the weeks leading up to Preston 10k and Cheshire 10k in recent months. In the two weeks prior to my run at Cheshire I averaged 5:04 and 5:03 on this session for the final weeks respectively. This Thursday , in ideal conditions it must be said, I ran 10:02 and 10:02 for the two repetitions - meaning an average pace of 5:01 and slightly better than anything I did in the build up to Cheshire which is a great thing to know and hopefully an indication of the shape I am currently in.
I got a longer run in on Sunday than I have managed for my long run in recent weeks, clocking up 15.5 miles and it was great to escape the bypass and get into the country lanes for the first time in a good few weeks!
Total mileage for the week: 72
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:25
Total mileage so far this month (December): 115
Total mileage so far 2016: 3219
Average miles per day 2016: 9.36
