Almost Time to Say Goodbye to Another Year

It's funny how things change. When I was at my running best, almost 20 years ago, I hated training and loved racing. I once ran 30 races in 3 months. Roll forward to today and I love pushing myself in training. Yes, I do the odd race here and there, maybe a half-dozen a year and yes, I do love the challenge of pushing to the limit but pushing myself to run a training loop just that little bit faster...

It's a fortnight of ups and downs. Last week I put in a decent set of 6 x 4min reps at faster than 5k pace off 90s. I also rode some solid bike sessions, mainly hill climbs - I bloody love hill climbing. The highlight was a new PB on the volcano climb and a surprise FTP increase of 5Watts. Of course, there were the usual zone 2 sessions to round things out.

This week hasn't gone so well. The first part of the week through to Thursday was marred by inner thigh muscle soreness. I managed a couple of very gentle sessions initially on the bike and then on the treadmill. I can only think I picked up the 'injury' clearing up and bagging all the leaves from the storm, where I was doing a lot of bending. I managed to get out for a decently paced 13.5k yesterday and some solid zone 2 today. Rest day tomorrow and then back on with some interval sessions. 

The Zone Two Experiment Continues...

There was no long run last weekend, blame Bert. Instead, I got out for shorter 9k blast Friday. Not quite a PB but I guess my legs weren't totally fresh - it was meant to be an easier week, but I can't help myself. Around the harder efforts it's been much ado about zone two. The other higher intensity session for last week was Tuesday's Zwift hill climb. The 14km 780m Trollstigen - and a PB.

This week, I started with a shorter Zwift hill climb Tuesday but full gas nevertheless, and, yes, another PB with some decent power, evenly laid down for once, as opposed to my normal go too hard and fade.

Zone 2 Wednesday ahead of the old down and up ladder intervals on the treadmill Thursday. I'm almost on the cusp of admitting that there might actually be something to all this zone 2 malarky. The ladder intervals felt easier than normal, to the point I increased the speeds on the way back up just get my heart rate somewhere near 160.

Today I headed out for a solid 10k tempo effort, focusing on steady efforts on the climbs. I followed that with a thirty-minute warm down on the Zwift. Up tomorrow is.... I wonder?

Up and Over in One

It has been a long time since I've run up and over May Hill starting from the A40 at Barrel Lane all the way to the top - without stopping for a walk. Oft it's only been a brief walk here and there, to recharge the legs and lower the heart rate, but there has unequivocally always been a bit of walking action. By my records it's been over eight years since I last scaled the south face of the Eiger - or May Hill as it is otherwise referred - without stopping to walk. Eight long, arduous years and the ravages of time have taken their toll. In truth, it's not the highest hill nor the longest route, but its 210m of ascent spread over 3.5km still holds a challenge, especially when 170m of the ascent is condensed into the last 2.2km. Not exactly a fell climb, it is nonetheless, a challenge I did not think I would defeat again. (The run was 11km total).

With the battle unexpectedly won, my thoughts turn to winning the war. I was, after all, only 60s shy of my 2016 best. There is life in the old dog yet...

Away from today, it's been the usual mix of zone 2 and targeted sessions. A fifty-minute, threshold, hill climb on the bike Wednesday and a threshold run Thursday. I'll finished with some more zone 2 tomorrow and then a rest day Monday.

Finally Set a New PR on the A4136 Climb Segment

It's been steady progress on the training front. More of the Zone 2 - obviously. Intermingled with some good interval sessions on the treadmill. Although I've been a bit slack on the Zwift bike sessions, only completing zone 2 training and no interval workouts. I need to put that right in the coming weeks. Overall, it's been a solid couple of weeks.

The highlight was today's PR - or PB in normal, non-Strava, speak - on the A4136 Climb segment. I've been threatening it and finally nailed it, at the back end of today's 14k run. Mission accomplished - although I do expect to push it further on future attempts...

That's Torn It

Well not really but I have slightly done my foot. Today's medium run ended slightly shorter than planned because I turned my foot on a stone - a big stone, not some tiny pebble. Practically a rock. Set in the path to booby trap us runners...

The forestry has been laying gravel on the tracks over the last few months, to fill in a some of the bigger holes. That's a good thing but the range of size varies from fine to proper lumpy. That's not been a problem until now. There's been a lot of leaf drop and it's now almost impossible to see what lies beneath - and I didn't see what lay beneath and turned my foot. It was instant pain, but it did ease within a minute, and I carried on.

It's feeling sore now so I'm not sure there's going to be any zone 2 running tomorrow and possibly none for the next few days. Hopefully I'll be okay for Zwifting on the bike.

Other than today's mishap, it's been a good couple of weeks training. A mix of zone 2, intervals and bike sessions.

Well That Was a Turn-up for the Books

So, after about eight years out of the orienteering game, I stepped back into the ring. I've kept my membership live in the hope that one day I would be lured back. That luration - not a word - was today as the orienteering quite literally came to town - or more accurately, my neck of the woods, Flaxley woods. It would have been rude not to...

It's been so long I've forgotten what the map symbols mean, what the map scale is, what the contour height is - and I forgot to check all that, caught up in the excitement [sad bastard] but hey, oh, I gave it a go. I decided on the Green course with its full technicality but shorter than the blue or brown. Flaxley woods are rough as a badgers ar** when you go off-piste and I didn't fancy being out there all day.

So, I set off and it wasn't long before I had completely lost my way. I was flapping around like a headless chicken by checkpoint 2. Yes, the second checkpoint of fifteen! - I thought, this is going bloody well, as I threshed around in the bracken... I probably spent the best part of 15-minutes not finding the control. Mind you, I wasn't the only one. It was like a police search over a crime scene - but with less organisation and no actual crime - other than impersonating an orienteer. Thankfully, from there I got going and actually navigated pretty accurately for the rest of the course. If I'm honest I've never been any bloody good at it, but it is fun - in a sadistic, evil sort of way.

It was a bit of a surprise to see I was actually 8th of 34 finishers/41 starters! I'll take that. Till the next time...

Training has been the usual mix of treadmill sessions, zone 2 and some Zwifting. The highlight was a new PB on the virtual Col des Aravis climb on Zwift and a solid tempo nee threshold run yesterday, almost culminating in a PB on the A4136 climb segment - and I wasn't even going for it. Honest. I was on tempo/threshold run and didn't see any chance of bettering my recent best time. I didn't want the mental disappointment of trying and failing, so I just took it steady - but still with some effort. It did not feel quick. It was with some sadness, as I analysed the Strava data, as you do, to see I missed my PB (set in 2015) by just 2 seconds. On the plus side, I know I'm going to smash it sometime soon.....

The Weekly Update

It's been another solid week of zone 2 but I did miss Wednesday's bike session. Tuesday's treadmill session was hard work as I went for the extended version with more reps. Yesterday I repeated last week's feat of running the full Velthouse Lane segment again - I'm making it sound like it's bigger, steeper hill than it really is, but it's challenging enough for me.

Now I've broken it and got my marker, I pushed a little harder this week. I'm going to keep applying a bit more effort each time until I get close to my old time from 2013. I'm not sure how achievable that is but we'll see...

Around the focused training there's been three 'zone 2' hour+ sessions, one on the bike, the others on the treadmill. Looking forward to my rest day tomorrow.

Psychological Barrier Down

The last couple of weeks has been a continuation of Zone 2 running and biking combined with one treadmill interval session and one Zwift bike workout per week and a weekend medium run.

The treadmill work outs have been pretty solid. The bike sessions hard, as I've let them slip a bit. I feel I'm getting some momentum going though. My jury is still out on the zone 2 but the verdict is going to be a few months away - the jury needs much deliberation.

The weekend runs have been good. Last Saturday was a pretty solid 13k road run with an attack on the final climb, only seeing me miss my segment PB by under 20s - I'm getting closer, as that was a twenty second improvement on my previous attempt. Next time.....

This Saturday I was back for the Flaxley loop, with the focus on the climbs. I wasn't going PB, but I did put in solid efforts. The highlight was managing to run the entirety of the Velthouse Lane Climb segment. A feat I've not managed since 2016. It wasn't the fastest I've done but I was determined I needed to run the whole 1.5km. So now the barrier is broken the gloves are off.... 

So I know I said I wasn't going PB, but buoyed by my vanquishing of the previous climb, I finished the run with a cheeky attack on the East Side Climb segment - and managed to equal my own (shared first place) KoM time of 2:26. Grrrrhh. I will be the one true ruler of the East Side KoM. I will!

A Solid Week

It's been a week of focused training. A solid Zwift hill climb on Tuesday, under/overs on the treadmill Wednesday, a sixty minute Zwift Academy session Thursday that culminated in a new 5-minute power PB. Friday saw me keeping my heart rate averaged at 127 for a 75 minute zone 2 treadmill run. Up yesterday, a very humid jog round the local woods. Couldn't get going. The humidity did for me. Then today it was an 80-minute zone 2 run on the treadmill followed immediately by 30-minutes in zone 2 on Zwift.

I hope this zone 2 training malarkey is legit. Do you know how much zen it requires to run for 80 minutes on the treadmill - slowly? I can tell you, it's a lot!

Enter the Zone 2

I've managed some pretty productive training these last few weeks. Some decent mid range weekend runs, a few tempo runs and some good speed work on the treadmill. Plus I've started to get into 'zone 2' training. Something I've never done before but I've been reading up on it and thought I'd give it a try. All my runs now, same as a decade ago, end up being hard efforts. Even my easy runs ends up as a hard effort. I just can't help it. So I'm trying this zone 2 stuff out on the treadmill where I can control the conditions and nudge the speed up or down to keep mt heart rate middle of the zone - now, whether the zone is calculated correctly is another matter.... but hopefully I'm in the ball park.

There's even been a few focused training Zwift sessions on the bike, rather than my more normal 'ride around a bit making it up as I go'. The highlight of the Zwifting, for me, are the hill climbs, and I've ridden a couple. There is nothing better than 5-10k at 7%.

All in all, it feels like it's been a productive few weeks.

Low Key Training

Been a very low key couple of weeks training. I've not been enjoying the heat plus work and other bits and bobs has meant training has been intermittent. I've missed a couple of sessions here and there but I guess that's just how it goes some times. Maybe it's no bad thing to have a quieter spell but I'd like to get a few solid weeks of training to rebalance things.

This week is picking up though, with tonight's solid virtual time trial on Zwift. It wasn't meant to be a time trial but it quickly went there and before I knew it, I was at threshold for a 30 minute steady state ride. Yesterday's 9k run was sluggish. When I set off it felt cool but I soon realised that was a false impression as ten minutes in I was sweating like a vicar in a brothel - or should that be, sweating like a priest in a kindergarten? Moving swiftly on, Monday was a solid hill climb on Zwift. Due another run tomorrow. Hopefully intervals but we'll see what tomorrow brings. 

On the plus side of the slight dip in training consistency, I'm still managing to squeeze in about an hour of piano practice per day. I feel I'm making good progress as an older beginner.

A Week With A PB Can't Be All Bad

It's been a low key couple weeks. I've had a several decent medium run including an out and back (14k total) to the summit of Fan Llia to marshal in the Four Fans Race last weekend, a solid 8k yesterday - which was meant to be 16k but it was just so god damn hot I cut it short, and a tempo 8+k today. There's also been a few solid Zwifts.

The highlight was Tuesday's Blaisdon 10k. My first road 10k, since last years Blaisdon. I was still feeling the effects of the mountains and since I haven't been focusing on speed, I was not expecting much. I was looking at sub 50 but hoping for something closer to last years time.

Anyway, on the race, and I managed to avoid getting caught up in the "starting too fast surge" on the downhill section in the first 500m and quickly settled in to a steady, controlled pace, a few seconds inside PB* pace. I wondered whether that was too fast but carried on. It's an undulating course with a surprising 100m of total ascent. I was definitely hanging on in there in the last 2k but managed to improve my time by 40s to 47:11. And looking at my splits, despite feeling I was fading towards the end, my pace didn't drop off so the endurance I've been building is definitely having a positive effect.

I'm going to move to a two week schedule where I do a long weekend run every other week vs every week as it was leaving me too empty to do the speed work. I'll put the speed work on the alternate weeks and other bits and bobs in between. That way I'll get my speed and my endurance. Well, that's the plan.

* For the record, when I refer to PB, I am referring to my post running re-boot 2.0 PB and not my 'life time best'.

Result! Didn't Get Soaked

It's been a week of very easy training ahead of today's race, the Fan y Big fell race. I knew it was going to be a tough test - and it didn't disappoint. The forecast was for rain throughout the race, which started midday. That rain didn't really materialise. The sun even made an appearance. The wind on the way out was pretty strong in gusts but I'd take that over continuous rain any day.

I was happy with my race. I ran a good amount of the ascent, which kicked in after about 500m out from the start and didn't stop until the high point at about 7km, climbing some 600+m at an average grade of 9.4%!. A year ago there would have been a very different ratio of running to walking so I'm really pleased about that. My long training runs have really helped my endurance and I felt strong - until the final couple of kilometres, where the pounding descent finally took its toll.      

Finished top half of the field and gained five or six places after the initial settling phase, so over all I'm very happy. Hopefully I won't be needing to descend the stairs backwards tomorrow but we'll see. Oh, and although the route was clockwise this year (first time ever) I was over 11-minutes quicker than the last time I ran it in 2019, clocking 1:47:20.

Another KoM

I've felt a bit tired this week. Not a huge surprise as last week was a solid week. I did slightly more Zwifting than standard, including solid climb portal ride. Run-wise, I did get out for that promised 10k on Monday, a lunch run from the office Wednesday (and by heck was that ever a hot one). Yesterday I ran an unusually short (for a Saturday) 6k but did claim another KoM segment, although I only equaled the record so there is still work to be done to claim it outright. Today was a hilly 10k. I pushed the climb and was rewarded with my fastest time so far, only 35s from my heyday best so I am closing in. Not sure it's going to be a viable KoM target as I am way off the time of the top spot. Maybe top ten...

The week ahead will see me ease back as I head into the weekend as I'm back out to the Mountains for the Fan-y-Big fell race on Sunday, a testing 16.5km with 650+ metres of ascent. And it definitely will be a test.