Oakley 20
It's been 6 years since I last ran Oakley when I was in decent shape and put out a 2.04 odd for 4th place. Picked up an injury that day and put me out of action for 4 weeks and ruined my London (still ran, 2nd run in a month and managed a 3.07!)
First time I ran Oakley was 2.21 odd and I never recovered from that run by London.
Oakley 3 - Daz 0 I think it's safe to say.
So, decent week training in the bag by Friday night. Missed Wednesday bike session but with school holidays and an all day family day (plus major work meltdown) I hit every other session including a late 3 x 20 min SS session on Friday night. Went to bed tired but very happy.
Saturday morning, slept through my alarm - first time this year - and got on the turbo late. Managed a very poor 2 hours at 130W and just didn't have any gas in the legs.
So on to today's race. Plan was to run fairly comfortable 6.45's which off my recent half should be do-able.
Oakley for the uninitiated is whats technically known as a fucking bastard hilly course. 2 laps (12 miles then 8). I started with Monkey Dan OK but never really got comfortable. We matched up with Makka at about 4 1/2 miles. Running 6.45-7/mm and drifting to 7/mm - 7.15/mm by the end of the first lap everything was OK, however the hills really started sapping the legs by about 13 miles. Started feeling a bit dizzy & sick so backed off a bit. By 15 miles the wheels were off and it was survival mode. 8/mm pace but the problem was it was 9/mm up hill and 7/mm down. The quads were well and truely mashed and like Saturdays ride I just didn't have the tools to push on.
The last mile was a bastard but I needed the shame of a lowly finish to kick my run form up the arse.
What a week. Ended Friday feeling indestructible and finished the week worrying about everything !!
Possibly coming down with something, maybe bad diet or just lack of sleep. Not one for excuses but Sat & Sun were just really poor efforts.
The Friday bike session was really good so hopefully that will all be fine again this week. Swim went well all week, hit all target paces so looking strong there.
Run is an interesting one. I'm a form runner, if I'm going well I'm flying but at the minute it feels like it's bottoming out. One thing is at least the legs have had a good workout today, the hills battered me and that was my longest run for 18 months. If they shake out and the pace comes back I think I will be good as gold, however I can't help thinking I should be scaling back London to maybe a 3.15 attempt which will be fine off today's performance (pace judgement is key in a marathon init!)
Not panicking but I am waiting for some pace to come back to my running. I'm also aware my last few long rides have been 3hr 45mins, 3.30, 3, 3.35, 2 so a few hours missing and need to hit my next 2 long ones (4 & 5 hours). Pace / watts is happy days just getting the time in the bag for confidence now.
Target this week is to nail everything. Easy start to the week to recover and a good solid weekend. The sessions start ramping up in time so focus is on hitting the times and distances.
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