Week 6 - Last Dance of Summer

On to Battersea this week. Final race of the block and last time I race in a semi serious manor until December. Focus this week is just staying on top of current fitness and getting to Friday night ready to roll.

Monday

Rest day from running but did some plyos, some bodyweight mobility and upper body weights just to stay active.

Tuesday

Track. 6 x 400m at around 5k pace with Andy & J. Led a rep each and 200 jog in around 70 secs. Absolutely hammered down with rain, first time warming up and cooling down in leggings since about March.

77, 76, 76, 76, 76, 73

Last one felt pacier after Sunday but the others felt absolutely fine.

Wednesday

CC. Standard 8 @ 8.08 pace with Dan, Wayne & Rich. HR much lower this week. 125 bpm finally conditioning starting to appear.

Nice run, felt relaxed. Time to recover.

Thursday

Golf in the morning as picked up a new driver. Rest from running, all about getting body and mind in the right place now.

Friday

Good nights sleep. Thoughts heading to race now. Reality is that 16.20 - 16.29 is par. I really should be running that by now. At least my last 2 races were consistent so as long as the legs show up I'm pretty happy to start thinking 3.15-3.18 per km. Only issue I'm not overly confident about is that I am in much faster wave than expected (15-16.00 wave) so have to work harder than I'd like first km to stay in contact.

Did a shakeout in the morning just 2km.

Headed to Battersea with Andy & Jake. 

Walk down and set up then a lap of the course warm up. Starting in a later wave than Andy with J so settled in to try to get myself prepared.

Into the race. Start at the back, well aware I am by far the slowest peron in this wave. From the gun I am in last 2/3 spots but settle in and pretty relaxed for the straight past the bandstand.

By the turn at the bottom and onto the curve I am off the back and in last spot. The main groups are ahead but it's not totally gone at this stage. 1 guy comes back to me and I pass and he latches on.

Through km marker in 3.08 (it's short).

Work hard and staying in front of the guy I am with. Closest person ion front is about 10m up and can see Jacob about 30m up the road. At the back but it's not too spread out just yet.

Hit 2km in 6.31 (long but about right for 2km). Very away that I have been pushing hard from the gun. Not relaxing. I thought I saw 6.21 on Garmin - only afterwards realising I was slower and fairly excited and this helped.

Coming back towards the start I am now about 5m up on guy behind and can see rags in front of me but still not miles off the pace.

Through start line, still pushing hard and pass halfway, then the finish line then band stand in short sucession.

Mentally feel like I have been going hard from the gun but quick stock take and actually feel under control but very aware on the edge.

Just coming up to 3km a guy is dying off the group after blowing up. Make the pass and I'm up to 58th of 60 - happy days. He doesn't come.

Pass 3km in 9.51 (correct distance here on both - which makes sense why my 2nd km was 31 not 21 lol).

Push around the turn and now I'm onto the hard part and head down to the next km split. This one mentally goes pretty quick.

4th km and I know I've put a real dent in the gap behind now and feels lot more than the 5m it's been for ages. Can see people in front. Unlikely to catch as I'm heading in to survival mode. Pass in 12.06 (it's short) and get excited thinking I should def be in the 16.2x range.

Pass the 2km marker and Andy said was 600m to go (300 to turn and 300 to line). Working hard and still on the edge. Have not relaxed at all this race. Pass the last turn and start line. Just focussed on the line now. Cannot lift just try not to give much back.

As per the other 2 races in this block I just do not have the fitness to close out so head down and back to work.

Cross the line and hit stop. 16.39 on Garmin and it's 16.37 official.

Absolutely 100% effort. HR was 169 avge and 176 max. Felt hard from the gun and did not relax at any stage. That today was everything.

Initially disappointed but quickly realise that's a solid performance. I've not trained and sat with the group. I've had 4 weeks building and I am really not fit so actually that's pretty good and well in line with the 4.28 & 9.33.

Andy finished with 16.27 in race 1 which is a huge pb and Jacob smashed 15.49 in my wave which is epic off about 8 weeks training.

Cool down then pizza and beer on the way home.

Winter starts now!

Saturday

Up early and Parkrun no71 with Ange at Stories. 6.40 pace and a short cool down and legs feel good.

No point pushing today.

Focus now is to pull one of 5 leavers

1 - fitness

2 - strength

3 - speed 

4 - explosiveness

5 - lightness

Everything aimed at getting on top of these this winter to become a much better athlete. Race block is over, build slowly now over winter and a much more relaxed time. Going in to winter in this shape is brilliant especially of very low training load.

Sunday

Out early for Wimpole with Dan. Bumped into Matt at the start and did a lap with us. 2 laps (just over) 1 in each direction for 12 miles with lots of climbing. These are going to be a mainstay of this winter - certainly autumn at least to get the legs stronger.

Did some weights (trap squats), RDLs and calfs.

Was pretty battered by the end of it.

Summer is over! Last race of the 3 race block is done. Pretty standard return - 4.28 / 9.33 / 16.37 - you could draw a line through all 3 of them. Bit off of where I would like to be but to be fair it's a solid start off 4 weeks of training and a 2 week race block taper!

From here the levers to mainly pull are strength and fitness - don't loose anything but slowly add some strength and speed.

39ish miles for the week. Very light obviously with a Friday race but gree shoots of fitness. Great place to be moving on to summer.