Monday morning still had the afterglow of an eventful weekend after my race win at the Grindleford Gallop and the girls doing great at the final event of the South Yorkshire indoor series. But Monday also signalled the arrival of DOMS - Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
Unsurprisingly it was my quads and lower calf muscles that were sore - from hard descents and racing effort climbs respectively at the 'gallop. I only had time for a short 5-mile recovery run home anyway, so the DOMS didn't cost me anything.
By Tuesday, my legs were feeling reasonably OK so I jogged 3 miles to club training night and then went out on a comfortable 10 miler with some club mates - with the last mile gradually winding up to around 5:10 pace. My legs felt OK and it was good to hold a hard effort for a few minutes again. I also discovered that my maximum heart rate is higher than I previously thought - as I briefly hit the dizzy heights of 164bpm. I will get round to checking my zones this week.
Wednesday was a recovery double (6.2 / 7.5). I lost a bit of discipline on the evening run and tipped into zone 3 of my heart rate a bit too much, but felt fine afterwards. Just as well as Thursday was a hard session day.
I opted to go on the treadmill to get better control over the session and decided to go for a varying hard pace fartlek instead of a classic 'rest for a bit between efforts' intervals session. My instincts tell me that fartlek must be better for marathon training - but it's just a hunch. The session was tough - alternating between 5:25 and 6:00 min / mile pace - bringing in the 10 miles in around 57 minutes. I was hanging on a bit at the end but was glad to get it done.
Friday was another uneventful recovery double splitting the 12 miles reasonably evenly between morning and evening, holding back on the effort so that I could hit the Saturday threshold run harder. The threshold session had to be squeezed in amongst all the kids' activities but it focused the mind and I held threshold heart rate of 145bpm (target marathon effort) reasonably comfortably for 35 minutes and ran bang on 10K. I know from measuring my heart rate that the treadmill, even with a 1% incline, flatters me by 15 or 20 seconds per mile, but hey ho, it'll do.
I had scheduled a 20 mile+ run for Sunday having missed my longest marathon training run (30 miles) the previous weekend in exchange for the Grindleford Gallop. Concerned about the tedium, I invited a few club mates to join me for some or all of the 8am run and got a good little posse together. I ended getting up a bit earlier and getting 5 miles in before we met, and then did 13 miles or so with the group, another 5 with just Chris Ireland (training for Manchester), and then another few miles on my own (including joining the Varsity 10K stragglers along Harcourt Road). The overall run was 25.5 miles at just under 7 min/mile pace, and, critically, it was over in time to do some mother's day stuff at home. I was knackered at the end of the run but having basically eaten all day, my energy is returning. Just as well, the next few weeks will see the end of the business end of marathon training culminating in two weeks of warm weather 'coastal path' training in Cyprus and then a two week taper.
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