Wednesday 27 August 2008

Tempo run

I am sitting here eating breakfast and listening to radio 4 before I start work for the day. Apparently Mumbai has a serious odour issue at their municipal solid waste site so the authorities have decided to bring in 42,000 litres of deodorant to deal with it. Imagine the smell of that volume of Lynx. Enough to melt all your mucous membranes I suspect!

Anyway, I went out for my tempo run last night round Furzton Lake in Milton Keynes and it went quite well. I set out to warm up for 1 mile, to run sub 7 pace for 4 then to cool down for 1. I've not really done much speed training since before the WHWR and now with both WHWR and DOTH in my legs I feel a little sluggish speed wise. I didn't feel like I had pushed myself as I neared the end of the 4th sub-7 mile so decided to do a 5th. I could probably have squeezed out a 6th but my motivation went.


Eastern end of Furzton Lake

Distance: 7.5 miles
Ascent / descent: +/- 85' (woooo hilly)
Time: 57:09
Splits: 8:12, 6:43, 6:47, 6:51, 6:54, 6:51, 9:59, 4:47 (half a mile)

I don't need lots of speed / tempo training just now as I gear up for the High Peak 40, so will probably do a speed (interval) session one week then a tempo run the next. I am thinking of this as an alternating week training plan:

Week 1 - 1 x long trail run, 1 x medium tempo run, 1 x medium trail run, 1 x hill training
Week 2 - 1 x long trail run, 1 x medium road run, 1 x medium trail run, 1 x speed intervals

I can only manage 4 sessions per week as I have my baby daughter Eilidh to look after. Much better than running! Well some of the time at least (depends on how many nappy changes you have to do). We are going to get my wife back into shape now with a spot of running and gym bike work so I'll have to swap around exercise nights.

2 comments:

Project White said...

I hadn't even considered that the bothy hobo had been poaching! He genuinely did eat nothing but fried flour and water while I was there. He also made sure he was around when we were packing up, hoping that we would fling some scraps in his direction!

Thanks also for comment on my blog - after my last post my foot swelled considerably and my partner, who's a nurse, insisted a visit to A&E was necessary. No break but they indicated a tear of the ligaments was most likely.

I've just started back running again gently in the last few days - can still feel it but it's not sore. I think the enforced rest has probably been a good thing.

John

Brian Mc said...

I tore various muscles and ligaments in my right foot in a telemark ski-ing accident in 2001. My foot went black and blue and it took a good few weeks before I could properly walk again. My ankle is still is a bit wobbly now and then as once you tear the muscles / ligaments they never quite regain elasticity. Clearly though it hasn't affected my running! :-)