V50 Comeback - Week 2

Another week rolls around and I'm away for the majority and have a session planned on Saturday (drinking NOT running). Do not believe I'll top 40 miles to keep the trend going!

Tuesday July 22nd

Warm up 2 miles and cool down 2 miles. Session day off a rest day and as usual legs feel bleugh!

Plan was 2k, 1 mile, 1200, 800, 400 (basically drop a lap each rep) but I hit a wall on the 1200 and failled. Legs were not responsive and I definately felkt like I got the worst of GPS signal as paces felt quicker.

2k - 5.44/mm (7.08) - 153 bpm

1 mile - 5.39/mm - 161 bpm

0.12 - 5.47/mm

800m - 5.15/mm (2.37) - 152 bpm

400m - 5.11/mm (78) - 148 bpm

Felt heavy and wore Saucony EE2 but was moving fairly well and main thing was no ankle pain.

Wednesday

Very tired run, everything ached. Few days of eating badly and booze and it hit me pretty hard. 7 miles @ 8.19/mm for 134 bpm. All on trail and soft fluffy grass so expected that.

Thursday

Planning to session tomorrow so an additional easy run. Unfortunately left hip flexor was seriously tight and starting to ache. Moving much better albeit slowly but made the call to get some extra time to stretch everything out. Annoying as was planning 8 but hit 6.5 @ 8.25/mm for 128 bpm. Wore the Peggy Plus which felt good but possibly do not help as my plantar issue flared up later tomorrow!

Friday

Session on track. Decided to do some speed work just to get an idea where the legs are. In 2023 this was how I built up doing short sessions off long recoveries. The plan was to do 4 x 400 off 200m slow walk and then 4 x 200m off the same. Hoping to go around 72/73 for the 400s as 1500 pace.

Ended up running harder. 70, 69, 68, 68 for the 400s. That was filling with lactic by the end and the last 50m or so of the last rep I had to dig in. Probably 800 pace but first couple felt almost relaxed.

I managed 1 x 200m in 35 secs but I was really moving slowly! My first visit to Dr Lactic for a long, long time !!

Short cool down in the Peggy Plus as left plantar issue was starting to show. I think I need to retire these shoes as I think they aggravated it in February when I was coming back.

OK, so we need to talk about the 400s - I was seriously happy with these. That's below target 1500 pace and I was moving well. Obviously off very low overall conditioning and almost zero speed conditioning this is an amazing place to start.

I think in a few weeks I would comfortably say this is 1500 effort (NOT pace!) so really close to the right ball park of low 4.20s / 4.40s. I actually think just tirning up will get me there.

Another big win was that I wore spikes and had zero issues. Felt fine, no aches or pains just lactic from the effort.

Now I am moving at the correct pace I just need to work on reducing recovery and increasing volume. But it's really nice that I have 68s in the tank already.

Did this session in March 2023 and I was coming off 4.28 / 9.30 shape and held slightly faster average and held on to the 200s. I am not there yet but I am not a million miles away. The good thing is I have a couple of relaxed races before holiday and then when I get back I can pick some decent race opportunities. If I continue as-is I will be in a really good spot.

Need to focus on diet - it was horrific while I was away, rehab - again I had a week pretty much off but need to restart and overall health. 

Saturday

Parkrun #95. Legs pretty battered today after yesterday so easier. 20.13 @ 6.32/mm for 154 bpm and pretty much below threshold entire run. Really good and a step up considering how tired and battered I was. Short wu / cd with Dan & Matt to make it 6 miles.

Saturday had an all dayer booze session with Griff and AC. Really nice to catch up with the boys. Late one home after way too much to drink and a fish finger sandwich before bed.

Sunday

Rest day. Wake up feeling like I have been attacked by baseball bats. Order of today is to recover and rehab the body. 

Shorter week this week as I had no long run (racing Monday night). Have switched to the 800m on Monday so I can get a session in on Tuesday. The 3000m is what I would rather do but I think it's just not going to logistically work out for the best and the 800m will give me a better springboard for the mile the following Friday week.

35 miles for the week on 5 days. This week was made considerably harder by a poor diet. Really good session on Friday was the only half decent performance and I was dealing with aches and pains all week. This was all due to eating shit.

That is now a key focus going into this block all the way up until Westminster Mile. Get on top of nutrition and weight management and start to build fitness. I can't recover without eating right and this week was a real slog.

No booze, limit snacks, water before every meal and go heavy on protein. Keep it simple and hit numbers before training days. The plan is 5 run days a week and the target is to get my body well enough to just run straight out of bed.