How long did I say?

There's been a sense of renewed purpose here in the secret bunker beneath PRL towers the last couple of days.

The array of wall mounted charts that a rotate into the wall to look like bookshelves have been covered with charts and highly scientific looking graphs.

Screens have been flickering with data sent from sophisticated satellite monitoring systems with minute-by-minute weather models.

And the kettle has been on pretty much constantly.

Why this frenzy of activity, I hear you ask (if that's the kind of thing you ask, and if you could somehow talk to a blog)?

I've looked ahead at this weeks training, and the term “monster month” suddenly has been brought home to me.

Six miles tonight, 12 Weds, 12 Fri, five Sat, 20 on Sunday.

Sadly that last one's not a typo.

This whole escapade was begun on the premise that I refuse to let my body dictate what I can and can't do.

Sad? Pathetic? Naive?

Probably.

But I'm northern and we're a stubborn breed.

So I'm planning, "horizon scanning" and generally plotting to make sure that each and every run this week will go well.

I'm planning routes, meals, drinks, and even what I take to work so runs home aren't hampered by overstuffed pockets.

I'm even thinking about how to get into the right frame of mind for each run. I'm not talking about any hippy/tree hugger time meditation thing, but something more manly.

Not sure what yet, but I know from runs in the last month or so that the more I'm "up for it", if you'll pardon the expression, the better the run. "Better"being relative rather than absolute!

4 comments:

  1. I wouldn't do 5 on Saturday having done 12 the day before and planning 20 for Sunday. Five won't help you but will hurt you / potentially injure you - I went to a training day on all this about three months ago and the guy said to try and avoid doing two runs in two consectutive days, definitely not three.

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  2. The five was down as a "recovery", gentle jog to get the legs moving to stop them stiffening up.

    Will give it more thought as I've tried to keep these little ones in to help with the overall mileage and getting my legs adapting to running as much as I need them to

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  3. In my opinion some of these schedules are too tough and can do more harm than good.

    I am not an expert but doing 12 Wednesday and then 12 Friday is too much let alone doing 20 two days later. There is no recovery time. I am quite a few years older than you so that will affect my thinking of course.

    I have largely given up following a schedule now, I couldn't fit it all in physically and keep a happy home life at the same time.

    I am going to do 13 miles or so tomorrow morning before work (nothing like a 5:00am start), maybe six miles or so on Friday and then perhaps another 13 on Monday. Anymore than that and I worry about injury.

    If I am going to run 16 plus miles I invariably won't do anything except maybe cycle for two days before or afterwards.

    Good luck if you stick with your current plans. You will deserve several cold ones by the time you have finished on Sunday.

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  4. It does seem a lot, but looking back at my plan a couple of weeks ago and I did (on the same days of the week) a 5, 12, 11, 5, and 18 - not hugely different.

    Not easy, but I can see the difference now.

    I think the idea is they're "different" kinds of run - the 11 was a VO2 run - start slow, then flat out for a good chunk, then finish slow.

    The 12 was a steady run, not working the heart/legs as much, but getting the miles under the belt.

    Completely understand the home life thing - I'm getting around it (sort of) by actually trying to only work the hours I get paid for so I can leave early and run home. It's 11 miles, so can add little loops in there to get up 1o 12 or so, which is handy for during the week.

    This plan has seen me build up to a lot of miles and so far (touch wood) I'm uninjured.

    When I'd finished last year, there was a woman who hadn't run further that 12 miles, and then only twice, so it really depends on the person.

    If I felt it was crossing over from general aches from tired muscles, to pain from damage, I'd stop in a heartbeat - messed that up last time!

    Hope that makes sense, kettle boiled halfway through and I lost my thought!

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