I came into this week especially tired. Having done my long run on Sunday due to the “gate-gate” saga, I didn’t have my usual day’s rest before kicking off the new week. Therefore I let myself off gyming this week, to allow better rest.
Not sure on causality, but tightness in my achilles came back, as well as some hip soreness on my long run.
43 miles done! Bringing in a lot of fatigue, I’m happy to get the big numbers done.
In fact, if my Strava analysis is correct, I haven’t run a 40+-mile week since March 2023. And I haven’t run more than 43 miles in a week since February 2023. Wow!
Obviously it’s early, and I want to run higher mileage still, but that’s a cool landmark to recognise.
I ran 9.5, so I’m allowing myself this one. Took a gel, and felt pretty good to be honest. Better than expected anyway, given how tired I’d been up to now.
In the past few weeks the long runs have been clicking, and this one was another level.
The last time I ran 15 miles was May 2024, and before that another year since I ran as far.
Today 15 miles felt amazing. I took two maurtens and a tour of London on a sunny Saturday, got caught up in some Park Runs and ended up closing 4x sub-7 minute miles, the last in the 6:30s, GPS assisted. This was cruise-mode at its finest.
I haven’t run a sub-7 minute mile in this entire training block. I was starting to think that kind of feeling would never come, or that sort of pace. What a run. So happy.
So that’s 3 weeks down and 13 to go. Boy these are going to fly aren’t they.
A lovely long run and a fast few miles is not how I thought a week starting constantly tired would end.
A big lesson: Hydration.
I take post-run hydration pretty seriously but don’t do much else special for the rest of the day. By adding a lunchtime lucozade to my routine I’ve added a lot of energy back to my life. Duh.
The gels seem to be going down okay, with 3 across the 2 longest runs. Still haven’t experimented outside of Maurten, which I’ll do at some point. Also need to increase the frequency on long runs to accustom myself to more.
I still can’t believe that long run!
Final thought is that morning heaviness I’m getting in my stomach is probably due to overeating a bit in the evenings. I will experiment with front-loading fuel in the day, and eat lighter at night to allow maximum digestion time.
I had planned a down week for the coming week, but a) I’d planned for more training weeks than this, so it’s a bit early week-wise, b) I’m coming in feeling quite good and c) I’m considering pacing a friend through a half marathon the week after, so that’d be a down-week long-run wise. Therefore, I think I’ll continue with a small progression next week.
Training
This is the last bump in the long-run for a while, after which it will sit at 16 miles for a few weeks, while I introduce a little pace into and around it.
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