Just missed my target volume of 70 miles for the week, more on why later. First off here is this weeks training schedule:
This week's key sessions was Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday. The week started off well with my tempo run completed in 65:08 which for 10 miles is pretty much race pace. Plus the session was on my own without any music in the cold, wind and wet. On a better day with company I reckon that will be under 65.
Saturday started well but I had started to develop a cough, however like all good runners I decided to ignore it. For the "cutdown" the first 5 miles was close to the correct pace. The last 3 miles was at parkrun therefore after a short break it was a case of ignoring whatever the prescribed pace was (6:30. 6:20, 6:10) and just go for it. As it turns out what should have been the fastest 3 miles of the session were anything but. I was feeling extremely fatigued and by the last mile I went down the gears and strolled in (but not into the finish as I didn't want to register a slow'ish time). The splits below tell the story perfectly:
It wasn't until Sunday's LSR that the wheel reallys came off. The intention was to do 12 miles, however within a few miles I knew the legs weren't just fatigued. In the end I did 6.8 averaging 8:44 and decided that rest and recovery would be better than trying to finish the session.
Thankfully the coming week is a lower mileage week giving me opportunity to recovery. The only stumbling block is I do have two 10ks, 1 of which is a Summer League on Tuesday on the course when I set my current PB. I had hoped to set a sub 38 like last year.