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'.
