VLM Training Week 12 - racing weight

Those of you that have stuck with me this long will be pleased to know I need to be very brief this week as I am supposed to be packing for my 10 day training camp, sorry, family holiday, in Cyprus. We fly tomorrow. So, here's the very short version of training week 12 written in 20 minutes flat (now, if I could race as quickly as I can type)...

Monday: Legs felt pretty tired from Sunday's marathon distance run. But 5 mile recovery run felt OK so I jogged a mile to work too. The fatigue kicked in later that afternoon, so the slow 4.5 mile jog home in the evening was tough.

It's Tuesday, so it must be SRC long reps time (read all about them in last week's blog). A few miles warming up done, I started the 6 x hilly 1200m off 90s session cautiously. My quads felt particularly tired, which probably meant they were not protecting my knees as much as they should be. No need at all for any irresponsible training at this stage! As the session went on, my legs warmed to the challenge, and the average pace over the twisty, hilly rep route dropped from 5:44 steadily down to about 5:25. My experience of reps like this is that the pace on the rough paths round Don Valley is a pretty good predictor of 5K pace, so I was reasonably happy with the session.

Wednesday was a double-recovery day with 7 miles on the treadmill in the morning and about 6 miles in the evening. My legs felt surprisingly good, so I picked the pace up for the last mile of the treadmill run (av 6:22 pace), and worked hard up the hills on the evening session too (6:52).

The first 3 days of the week were a good few miles more than my training schedule because I wanted to lower my mileage for Thursday and Friday, and hit the Northern 12-stage relays (4.7 mile leg) pretty hard to test my speed endurance. So Thursday was just under 6 miles with a few strides to finish, and Friday was an easy treadmill session with a few fast 800m at the end (last one at 4:50 pace).

Racing Weight

For the last couple of weeks, I have been trying to control my diet better. Eating more protein throughout the day (tricky when you're a vegetarian) and cutting out the crap. I have been carrying an extra kilogram (2.2lbs in old money!) or two since Xmas and when you consider that every kilogram costs you about 2 minutes during a marathon, it is worth focusing hard on getting your weight right. I will return to this subject in more detail when I have more time because I firmly believe that runners that want to go quicker, should really focus on achieving a healthy, lean weight. The performance gains associated with achieving a healthy, lean weight will far outstrip the gains from training until your eyes bleed (and you can train even harder and faster when you weigh less!)

Anyway, the reason for this context, is that for the last couple of months I have been stuck at around 71kg (just over 11 stone) with my bodyfat around 11%. My target weight for London is about 68.5kg (around 8% bodyfat). If you followed the paragraph above, you will see that this drop in bodyfat should make a 5 minute difference to my marathon time. But, it is one thing to do the sums, it's another thing to lose the weight!

People mistakenly assume that running 70 - 80 miles per week will make you thin. I find it just makes me bloody ravenous. But, over the last few weeks I have been doing my best to stay disciplined and on Saturday, after a couple of lower mileage days (equals less food eate, equals less food making it's way through my digestive system) - I weighed in at 69kg (9% body fat) for the first time since November.

My newly lightweight self, and the hard training over the last few weeks, meant Saturday's 4.7 mile dash around Sefton Park went pretty well (25:54 - around 5:30 pace). I went off much too quick of course (having not raced for a while), pegging it for the first mile in 5:12, but, that aside, I was pleased with the run. More importantly, the whole 12-strong team of men and 6-strong team of women ran well and we finished 13th ladies team, and 19th men's team - meaning that we all get to go to the 12-stage nationals in 2 weeks time to compete against the best clubs in the land.

Anyway, out of time. Just long enough left to say that Sunday's run was a pretty uneventful 22 mile run along the valleys to Rotherham and back with Mike Sprot and Kevin B. Legs felt OK after yesterday and the run passed at reasonable pace (6:38 average). The last few miles up through town (we held the pace) pushed my heart rate up close to lactate threhold levels, and I was tired at the end. But, that's the last 20 mile plus run out of the way now.

Starting to feel ready.