19 weeks, 36 miles, 4 training days and a new threshold for long sprints

This week was a tough week and even though I hit a mid-week wall, I managed to persevere and reach the total for my plan for the week.

I started out on Monday with my usual 5.4 mile loop and felt a lot fresher during this after my rest day on Sunday. The pace was not excessive but I felt I was going reasonably fast.

The next day I tried doing 5 x 1 mile sprints which was challenging for the first 2 reps and bordering on ridiculous for the other 3. I had tried to start with my first rep at my usual 5km pace then increasing the speed by 0.5kmh for each subsequent rep. This proved to be too much for me and I had to go back down to my original pace near the end. It’s good to think I have found a threshold for these now. I like to think of myself as pretty stubborn and that I’m able to power through whatever I goals I set in terms of distance and pace but on this occasion there was nothing left for my last 2 reps and was relieved to be able to complete the session at all!

I took Wednesday off and decided to do a double on Thursday instead. I did my usual 5.4 mile loop in the morning then did 7.5 miles in the afternoon. I had put myself down for a split shift at work and it was rather surreal setting off for work again once it had got dark again.

To finish my training this week, I did just under 13 miles first thing this morning. I really enjoyed my first 7.5 miles of it and felt surprisingly warm even though it was pitch black and I had shorts on. There definitely is some truth in the saying that if your wrists are warm the rest of you will be warm.

This week was less intense than my previous few but I’m looking forward to seeing if I can maintain my training once the 50+ mile weeks I have coming up from next week. Long time readers of this blog will remember the expression about training towards distances and being able to run it in a week so being back above the event distance will surely do me some good.