Turn Over

The missing element right now, the mythical turnover (or leg speed in old money)

I'm moving pretty well (aches and pains aside) it's just about 45 secs a mile slower than it should be when I am cruising. I'm stronger for the base work but it's not helping my top end.

Today, I really nearly didn't get started. I had a funeral to attend early afternoon and I felt a bit shitty and achey. I guess they have that effect on you. Fucked the session off and decided to card a zero and do it on Sunday. But I had that little nagging arsehole in my head telling me I really can't afford to waste it so just decided to not think and just do it (as Mr Nike says).

So a short and sharp session. Luckily, first speed work session is always acclimatisation so back to the drawing board of the 2020 Daz Man reboot and into 10 x 60 secs off 30 standing recovery. Starting the speed at 18 kmph and incrementally jumping 0.1 to get to 20 by the finish. I know the math doesn't add up but by 4th rep I always just jump 0.2 to match the interval to the speed so it's easy to count reps!

Finished up pretty well. Last couple of reps were tough but always good to do this session knowing you can start higher. I really need to get this up to 12 x 75 starting at 19 kmph before I am really moving but it will come.

This session is very short recovery so you're active fairly constantly. It really improves strength (as does Tuesday session) without taking huge dent in recovery. It's a great low volume bang for buck session and should roughly equate to 3k pace.

I'll keep the Two sessions from this week in the bag for a while as they do work well together to get what I need. Once I start moving better and threshold pace is down in the 5.4x range then I will drop the 8 x 3 min reps down to 6 x km off longer recovery and really hammer those paces. This session will grow slowly to up the pace and then increase reps and finally increase time. It's a long season but this is probably my critical one right now.

The great thing with treddy when you're not quite fit is it forces consistent leg speed - another bonus - and you can't really blow your brains out at the start of a session with too much pace.  Off a fairly short mileage week I am making big gains, lot less junk and hopefully start to feel faster when I am cruising.

Cool down outside - 2km and felt really springy. Wore the Alpha Fly today - my god they feel a world away from the Streak fly. I have no idea how Nike can market the Streaks as a 5k & 10k race shoe. The Alphas felt soo much faster.

I'm frustrated that I'm not able to gain as much fitness as I'd like with mileage right now. Just too fatigued constantly, not enough recovery. I'm not giving up on it BUT I do have a proven plan to get into well sub 17 shape off 35 ish miles a week so get there and look to build upwards.

Long run tomorrow - that means cafe afterwards - happy days !!