Very consistent week for me after a down week the week previous. 6 days of running, 1 rest day and lots of running into strong headwinds😉 which I’m sure many of you encountered over the past week. My god it was so cold last week. Don’t know if anyone felt that even 3 layers of clothing whilst out running was not enough. Not long back from a run today and got a bit of a shock to how warm it was in comparison to last week. Anyway, here’s how last week looked for me:
Monday: 8.15 miles – 61.05
Tuesday: 6 mile Tempo – 33.58 – 2.5 mile warm up and cool down
Wednesday: 9 miles: 67.30
Thursday: 9 miles – 65 mins with 10 x 20 secs hills in the middle
Friday: 8.2 miles – 62.33
Saturday: 14.11 miles 1hour 42 mins
Sunday: Rest Day – nice little hangover after a few too many glasses of wine
Pretty decent weeks training after a recovery week. Wanted to ramp things up but not too aggressively to trigger any niggles, so goal achieved on that front. I’ve been really diligent lately with mobility, activation and strength work which I think has allowed me to put back to back weeks uninterrupted so fingers crossed that continues. Another aspect I’ve been trying to improve on is not trying to hit every session out of the park, hitting a spectacular session whilst good for the confidence doesn’t mean necessarily that it will give you the required training adaptation and may only be effective at fatiguing you. Save it for the key parts of the year as in your key sessions, races (when they do come back) and Time Trials.
Over the last week or so with the inclement weather conditions we’ve all faced its been really tricky to hit specific paces and goal times. Therefore I think its really important to gauge your session by effort and how the body is feeling, which I’ll grant you is difficult to do but something if you can learn to be less reliant on your watch and more reliant on you internal body clock will make you a far more effective runner and ultimately racer. This is something I’ve been communicating to the runners I coach and trying to adopt myself over the last week, don’t worry about not hitting the desired paces and times, the effort is still there and you’ll get the necessary adaptations from the sessions. Also a week like last week will stand to you further down the line.
Its been a real tonic to see some of Irelands best athletes compete indoors over the last few weeks with some incredible performances from the Dublin Track Club lads and some of Ireland’s best female middle distance runners absolutely knocking out of the park. I think the term “shooting your shot” comes to mind and many of them are doing just that with some more exciting performances to come over the next few weeks. The European Indoors take place from the 4th – 7th March and I’d encourage everyone to tune in where hopefully a few of the Irish athletes will be in contention. With very little sport on TV at present think it’s a great opportunity for athletics to use this chance for more exposure. Was listening to one of the tributes to Jerry Kiernan a few weeks ago and he mentioned whilst arguing why more athletics is not shown on tv that: the great beauty of athletics is that you have a race and you don’t know the outcome so tune and see what drama can unfold! I think this summarizes the thrill of watching an athletics event, although I might be a bit biased, I love sitting down to watch a marathon from start to finish even though sometimes not a lot happens for 2 hours but that’s just me.
Have a great week folks and remember just keep your training steady and consistent and keep in mind the training you do now will have an affect down the line 😊
Cheers,
Noel
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