Speed and Progression. The tricky 3rd week.

Ah.... the tricky 3rd week. Time to introduce speed work. Two weeks of relative easy running and finally we’re off to start running at pace.

So what happened this week.... well a pretty standard nothing to write home about 45 minute easy pace run came and went without any drama. That stood aside as Thursday rolled round. 51 minutes, speed repeats. After a nice 15 minute easy warm up. Came 6x 1 minute at 1 minute faster than goal pace. Which was ok, but I was glad to see the back of it after 6 repeats. But the killer was next which was 6x 30 seconds at TWO minutes faster than goal pace (without just sprinting!) Proved a real challenge and pushed my ability to both run at night, check for ice on the pavement (it’s still pretty chilly here) and checking my watch to make sure I hit the target pace. The 15 minute cool down was much required and calmed me right down into a relaxing night and a good sleep.

But after speed, must come progression. So Saturday morning I was up early to get through a Progression run. Progression runs are a type of speed work. Where you run at below goal pace for a time and then run over goal pace for a time. The 10 minutes at 1 minute above goal was brutal. Not helped by the fact that I took the wrong run and ended up running on boggy grass making it tougher to run at any pace. I got through it, but a lie down at my parents house was needed as well as a bacon sandwich!

At least Sunday would be easy. 100 minute easy run. Yes please! Or so I thought. For 80 minutes it was a breeze. Ticking the miles off with minimal fuss. Ate my flapjack. Sipped my water. Listened to a brilliant podcast whilst dodging dogs, their owners and cyclists with their passive aggressive bells. (That rant is for another time.) But about 2 miles or so from home. I noticed something. The wind picked up, the temperature dropped. There hadn’t been any wind all day and according to the forecast none of note was expected.

Here I was, suddenly running into a headwind. The final 20 minutes of my gentle long run m, suddenly became a slog and a mental test. Thankfully, I dig deep and get to the end of the 100 minutes and decide to walk the remaining 3 minutes back to my house rather than jog back. On reflection, a canny tactical retreat.

To think I didn’t even get to tell you that I’d bought two new pairs of trainers! I’ve got a little rotation going on. I’ll talk about them briefly next week.

Until then take it one stride at a time,

Peter.