The Monday morning alarm clock sounded well before I was ready to get up, and with an early start at work, there was no time for the few recovery miles I had planned. Sunday's 25 miles had left my legs very tired though, so maybe it was just as well. My legs got rested and loosened up during the day at work - one advantage of having a job that involves a lot of sitting on your arse with the odd brisk walk to meetings round town. A late finish at work, and a promise to help Lola with her maths homework, meant I had to fit my Monday recovery run into 30 minutes. So, just over 4 miles - a couple of miles short of schedule.
Tuesday started with a light ('no sweat') 1.3 mile jog to work. The evening session was my scheduled return to the long established Sheffield Running Club (SRC) long reps session.
The SRC Tuesday evening reps session has been using the same Don Valley paths and trails for 1000m, 1200m, and 1500m reps since the 90s - meaning that the (many) vet runners at SRC can pretty accurately work out how fit you are, how fast you are likely to do a race and so on from your split times.
There is an accepted 'way' to do the reps: couple of miles warm-up, faff around with bags and jackets etc (stowing in bushes or a car), do some half-arsed strides and drills, and then pick the groups based on recent race times and do staggered starts so that the last reps all end about the same time. A couple of gentle miles warm down completes the session. The number of reps means the session is generally between 6km and 7km of hard effort with 90s rest between reps in the winter, and 2 minutes in the summer. You can expect to be gently chastised if you don't at least try to run all the reps at the same pace - it's not about who wins the first one or the last one.
The Tuesday reps are my toughest and probably most beneficial session of the week. I regularly think about them at the end of a hard race: "one more Tuesday night 1500m rep to go - gasp and get on with it". I dropped out of the session for a couple of months after Xmas when I was recovering from injury, flu and then the Grindleford Gallop. But, perhaps I have been subconsciously finding reasons not to do them! With the 12-stage relays fast approaching, I thought I had better test my leg speed.
But, DISASTER has struck! The building work at Don Valley has closed some of the paths used for the reps. The Tuesday night veterans are doing their best to cope with the disruption to decades of consistent data (some might need counselling) and they have measured a few new reps out. The new routes involve using the Don Valley bridge and bowl more (which has a nasty climb and a few twisty bits) so they are not as good or as quick, but we're making do!
Anyway, the session went OK with each of the 5 x 1500m reps out of the way in just over 5 minutes (about 5:30 pace). Nothing to compare it with, so not sure 'where I am' pace wise at the moment. The 12-stage relays next Saturday will answer that question.
Wednesday was scheduled as a double-recovery run day (3/7) but I felt pretty fresh in the morning, so pushed the morning treadmill recovery up to top end of recovery (130bpm, 6:20 treadmill pace) and ran a pretty comfortable 7 miles before breakfast. A late finish at work combined with Deb taking the kids to athletics, meant I had a bit more time in the evening than usual, so I got a decent 8 miles in at just over 7 minute mile pace (up through the mayfield valley).
A light jog to work on Thursday morning confirmed that the extra miles hadn't taken too much out of me, so I pondered on what quality session to do that evening. My schedule said 12 mile progression but I knew I wouldn't have time due to late meetings and a stupidly complicated array of stuff going on in the evening (parents evening at King Edwards, music recital at Westways, Deb physio appointment, Lola had come home from school ill etc).
I decided that I would do a few 400m reps in Crookesmoor Park. But, when I got there, a large posse of student-age skaters had taken over the path I use for my reps and littered it with their grungy detritus - sachels, bottles of pop etc. A quick diversion to the S10 gym next door allowed me to squeeze some quality in - a threshold (145bpm) 10K in just under 35 minutes (probably equivalent to a 37 minute 10K on the road). I felt like I could have gone on for longer, but no time.
Friday was another double recovery day - 7 miles treadmill in the morning and (another!) time restricted 4.3 miles in the evening. This time the constraint was the kids coming back to school late from various sporting events (Isla came 4th in South Yorkshire Primary Schools XC Champs and Lola's school Rugby team was undefeated at an event in Barnsley due in part to her ridiculous sprinting ability - she scored more tries than she could count).
I had been looking forward all week to a Friday night out with friends to see Mr Scruff at Queen's Rd Social Club. I was however slightly daunted by the prospect of going out late as Saturday morning involved getting Lola up and out to music academy for 8:45, and Isla to the schools XC relays at Norfolk Park for 9:30. I also fancied dropping on a parkrun or at least getting a few short reps in on Saturday ahead of a long run on Sunday morning. I didn't want to lose the weekend.
In the taxi over to my mate Ben's house, Deb and I decided we'd limit ourselves to a few drinks and come home at about 1am. Needless to say that plan was a complete failure: the night spiraled quickly and pleasantly out of control and involved lots of laughing, a degree of excitement at discovering that other people our age still go out dancing, and way too much beer (Chocolate Oatmeal Stout cask ale at a gig - how times have changed!) The taxi home pulled in at gone 3am and we were up again 4 hours later - shattered.
I managed to get the kids to where they needed to be - and enjoyed watching the primary schools relays (Isla ran well again, gaining a few places on the last leg to bring her team in 4th). The cake stall was also a big hit - a few too many visits for me perhaps. I managed to get to the gym and do 20 minutes on the bike and 20 minutes on the treadmill, but it was very low intensity - enough to help clear the toxins from my body, but no training benefit. Saturday was an early night!
Sunday morning was scheduled for a long run of around 26 miles. A quick post on the Sheffield Project facebook page quickly led to a decent posse wanting to go out - with people joining the run at various points so they could do the distance they wanted to do. I set off at 7:25am - picked up Mike Sprot at Hunters Bar, Trevor Neville and Kevin Bartholomew at Infirmary Rd (about 4.5 miles in), and Joe Sweetnam-Powell and Alex Collings at Hillsborough Corner. We ran out around Damflask and Agden reservoirs and returned the same route. People separated off on the way back, and I was back on my own by Hunters Bar. I topped up the miles to marathon distance (26.2 miles in 2:57) and flopped into the house for breakfast at about 10:30. Deb headed out shortly afterwards for a 20 miler - wearing a heart rate monitor for the first time. Must be serious.
5 weeks to go and all I have to do is that Sunday run again - about 45 seconds a mile quicker. Gulp.
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