Nice Trip to the Hills

Yesterday I was on Blorenge fell race duties once again. And what a day for it. It was a cracking weather. Not wanting to miss out on a run I headed over early so I could get out for a little pootle along the canal, and depending on the timing, run as far or not within the time window. Ended up just over 8km at close to 10k race pace. Happy with that.

Then after a bit I headed up to my marshalling spot, counted the runners through and then ran back down. I didn't go berserk on the way down as I was wearing walking boots, but I was more than jogging - and today my quads are sore from the pounding.

The rest of the week has been pretty steady mix of runs and rides and a solid Zwift race (bike) on Friday. It was one of my most competitive although I mucked up the finish and dropped from the front to 29th. I should have blasted into the finish climb as I'm strong on the climbs but instead I went in with the group, who all started hitting the power from the bottom, and I got caught sleeping and it was all over. I managed to claw back a few places, but the horse had bolted. Definitely need to hone my Zwift race craft.

Saved It for the Long Run

The body battery has been a little low this week, so I eased back on the speed work although I still completed the second of the Zwift Academy training sessions on the bike and that was pretty solid. Today was long run Saturday and I extended my distance out to 13½km. A slightly flatter route this week but not without some 200+m of ascent, mostly at the front end. That allowed me to get into a solid rhythm through the middle section where I was pacing around 4:50 pace before feeling the extra distance in the last few kilometres on the run for home. Happy with the run, completed in 1hr10.

I'm aiming to extend the distance little by little over the winter. Interspersed with keeping the speed work going, ready to hit the spring and break some records...

Continued Focus

Today was long (for me) run day and I covered 11 hilly road kilometres in an hour. Pretty happy with that as it's been another week of focussed training. Early part of the week I ran my fastest set of 6 one-kilometre reps at 4:10 pace, followed midweek by the first of the autumn Zwift academy bike training sessions and yesterday I ran three sets of 5 by 1-minute reps at 3:45 pace off 30s recovery.

What still stuns me, when I think about yesterday's session, is that at my peak, I was able to string 18 of those one-minute reps together - without the recovery for my 5k PB. I can't imagine how that was even possible! But then it was a decade and a half ago and I ain't getting any younger.

With that said, back eighteen months ago when the reboot began, when I couldn't even run a single kilometre without stopping to walk, I didn't imagine I'd be running kilometre reps at 4:10 or even thinking about making my legs move at 3:45 pace. I've come a long way in a relatively short time. It's been a bit of a journey to get here, with a few injuries and niggles along the way and the journey is far from over....

Focused

It has been my best week's training for a while. The achilles is pretty much back to normal. Still ever so slightly tight but five minutes of gentle stretching before the off and I don't even notice it.

I've run a couple of solid treadmill interval sessions and a decent session on the bike, culminating in today's treadmill session where I hit 16kph for the first time - and it felt comfortable! I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I feel my current 5k PB isn't going to be my PB for that much longer, if you get my drift. A few more solid weeks of training and then it'll be a park run.... I feel so good I reckon I might even be ready to don the club vest and complete my return from retirement in some actual club events like the GLCL - when I say ready, I mean in the spring when it's not so cold and wet....