No matter how good of a form or shape you believe you are in, and no matter how long you have spent training and racing well, it only takes one bad one to rock your confidence a bit and have you asking questions about every little piece of your preparation.
You are only as good as your last performance as they say, and I definitely was affected somewhat by my experience last weekend as I began a new week. The temptation was to throw myself straight back in with another race somewhere - it didn't really matter where, or what it was - just to try and 'prove' something to myself. I found a one mile event at Cottam and was debating doing that, just to run angry and get my frustrations out of my system.
But after a discussion with Coach Affleck at the start of the week, the clouds in my head soon shifted. Our chat refocused my mind on the big picture and that long term goal of Berlin, which is looming large on the horizon. He made me realise that I am at the start of possibly my biggest and most important training block yet, and doing off-the-cuff things like that could potentially de-rail my attempts for that.
Instead, I opted to get my teeth into some proper sessions and to start putting the hard miles in as the 14 week countdown to the marathon began. I am glad that I did, as looking back on the week's training, I would actually put it down as one of my most satisfying I've ever done. I completed a personal highest mileage week, and encorporated all of the main ingredients - with a track session, a progression run, tempo, and a longer than normal long run (as I start to build up to that big 26.2!). I also managed to double up on two of the days by adding a 4.5 mile run in before work on a couple of the days to top up my mileage and loosen my legs up after my bigger sessions the night previous.
I am my own biggest critic anyway, so after a poor performance I am always left scratching my head and looking at my plans and training and seeing what and where I need to improve. Ahead of Berlin, mileage and getting used to running on tired legs is definitely one aspect I will be looking to improve over the next 12 weeks or so. For what it is worth though, I don't think I am a million miles off having the right balance now, so it will be more a case of gradual evolution of my training, rather than root and branch revolution.
This week I ran 10 miles steady on the Monday and was wary about how it would go, just a little over 24 hours after bombing out of the race. I needn't have been too concerned though, as I ran solidly and averaged 6:10 pace comfortably all the way around, without ever really striding out too much.
Then on Tuesday, I decided to try a bit of a track session. I didn't do a full session, as again I was still a little bit concerned as to how much the weekend would have taken out of me. Instead, I did 3 x 1 miles (4:52, 4:53, 4:53) off a two minute recovery, then 1 x 800 metres (2:28) and 1 x 400 (69). My times faded towards the end as I began to feel a bit jaded and so backed off a touch.
I doubled up on Wednesday, choosing to do an easy 4.5 miles in the morning, followed by a steady 6 in the evening, rather than just doing one big session. This was mainly to break the miles up a bit and to get some of the lactic out of my legs early in the morning.
On Thursday I did a solid 10 mile progression run. I started out a tiny bit quicker than intended, but that just meant that I didn't have to up the effort quite as much through the second half. It was a big undulating loop, so I was pleased to finish up with 5:43 average for 57:15.
Friday was similar to Wednesday, with two gentle runs bringing another 10 miles to the bank.
Over the weekend I got two particularly pleasing sessions in, with a 2 x 3 mile tempo on Saturday (5:23 average pace) followed up by a long run of just under 20 miles at 6:21 pace. I had been dreading my first 20 miler of this training block and so it was a good one to get out of the way, but it went surprisingly well and I felt really relaxed and comfortable throughout. If it hadn't have been so early into the training schedule I would actually have been tempted to carry on for another few miles - so that has to be a good sign!
I have put a good first serious week of work down now, and it is a nice platform to build off from over the next couple of months. 13 weeks until race day...
Total mileage for the week: 83
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:19
Total mileage so far this month (June): 264.5
Total mileage for 2017: 1694.5
Average miles per day 2017: 9.68
