Training Log Archive: Badger

Bushy Park / Richmond Park / Thames path

Good long run, the fourth of the five 20+ milers I'll be doing pre-marathon. An exact repeat of the 31 Jan session (10 seconds slower), it seemed a bit easier than last time - apart from there being less mud now, it really feels like each pace feels like the effort level of 10-15 seconds slower than it used to do - even 4:45/km pace seems rather pedestrian now. I still had to work pretty hard to do the final 4km at marathon pace, but good to finish fairly strongly at that pace again after 20 miles.

Work to Hyde Park and back. Definitely felt like I was running on tired legs today - not surprising I suppose after another hard 100km week (and 800km in 8 weeks). I'll be welcoming the start of the taper in around 10 days time!

Hyde Park. Intervals (4 x 1.2km, off 3:00 recovery) - splits 4:16, 4:13, 4:17, 4:17 (average split 4:16, average pace 3:34 m/km)

This was supposed to be 5 x 1.2km, but unfortunately I had to bail out of the last one due to major GI issues. I won't go into any more detail but it wasn't pleasant... Just hope that's something that doesn't derail me on race day.

Still it was a pretty good session up to then, I managed the usual average target interval pace throughout the session despite the longer intervals (with longer recoveries to help), and I guess I shouldn't be too annoyed - one missed 1.2km interval isn't going to make the world of difference to the overall plan.

C • Mr Egg 2

Hyde Park

Event: London Street-O Race #7: Hampstead
 

Hampstead Street-O. This was as bad a Street-O run for me as last month's was good. I picked a poor route right from the start from which it was never possible to recover, going S/SE first, whereas I clearly should have gone straight to the points-heavy NW area around Hampstead village, which meant I ended up looping back near the start half-way through, a very inefficient route. I also made the mistake of missing out a few controls early on, and then leaving myself with nothing much to pick up in the last 10 minutes. I also managed to make a couple of navigational errors (one involving running down a steep hill for about 300m before slogging back up again!). So a very poor run navigationally.

On the plus side the running didn't feel too bad, although I struggled a bit with the hills - not used to contours at the moment with all my flat marathon training.

So fully deserved my worst street-O result for quite a while in 5th place, although I look to have wrapped up at least a top 3 finish in the series for the first time ever I think.

Results - 5th out of 72

Lambeth Bridge loop