Training Log Archive: slowphil

Oh dear. Whether or not I was tempting fate by declaring the calf injury behind me, it's hard to say, but it came back with a vengance after 13 minutes of this run. The pace was more intense than anything in Portugal, given how much easier the terrain and in particular the navigation was. It hasn't rained much in this part of the world this winter, but there was still some mud on the course, so perhaps this may have been a factor (was also muddy on Box Hill, of course, but was much drier and harder in Portugal). Carried on round the rest of the course, which took another 15 mins or so, and actually had a pretty good run (wrong side of a 'crossable' brbed wire fence to #1 cost me 15 secs, and vegetation thinning at #4 another 20 secs or so, but otherwise pretty clean on the Light Blue course. This was quite a good result considering my head was far from clear at the start, to the extent that I had travelled without either SI card or compass (thanks to Phillip Beale for lending me his compass). Right calf had that familiar stiff feeling for the second half and worsened later in the day.

I imagine that this effectively postpones my Virgin London Marathon debut by 12 months. Hoping that means that I can go for a sub-3 in fourteen months' time, rather than the good-for-age 3:15 that would have been my target after the injuries I'd had up to now.

Steady pace, with a couple of bursts a little quicker.

Felt ok. Legs still leaden so swim better than run I think.

Travel back from POM via a couple of Virgin Active clubs in Madrid. Hope to be back in the next month or two for the opening of a really nice new one - will make sure to use it if so! :)

Quads in particular stil not quite over Saturday's run, but generally feeling ok. Pulse a little higher than normal, but not sure anything too much to worry about.

Ouch! Back to earth with a bump. After two days which featured only one mistake, and that a 3 min error resulting from mistaking a big track for a road, things went from the sublime to the ridiculous today. Five separate big mistakes totalling the best part of 30mins of errors. Need to review the splits (without the benefit of gps today), but it looks as though at #2. #8, #13, #15 and #20, at least four of which were repeats of the same error: missing by ~100m after crossing difficult terrain (3 times dark green, once a combination of crags and green) and each time turning the wrong way ways the same direction) in terrain in which it's hard to relocate. Still, a great experience, and glad I didn't bale out at any point and take the roads :)

Looking at the splits, kindly assisted by what seems a generally solid run by Timeo, with Elite Pete living up to his name once more (yes, I got Huzza'ed on half a dozen legs, and by 11 mins overall, which hasn't happened in a while...), it seems as though I lost:
#2 4.5 mins
#8 4.5 mins
#13 4 mins
#15 8 mins
#20 5.5 mins

Will review where this all went in the morning!

Really good, clean run. Hit pretty much everything. A bit hesitant, especially in the rocky green bits, and conscious that some of the elite boys came past at much greater speeds, but the navigation was solid throughout :) 10th/71, and most of those ahead of me were within a couple of minutes or so.