Jackie D - Week 24

Week 24 - starting Monday 26 February 2007

Scheduled hours: 11hrs 45mins
Actual hours: 13hrs 05mins

Look! Back in business with the training. I still have a bit of a cough and sniffle but the only thing it affects is my sleep - so I haven’t been doing any early morning workouts (not that I do many anyway!)

Pretty similar week to what was scheduled last week except that I did manage my long bike and long run this week. The long bike wasn’t too bad at 2hrs 15mins and I watched a movie so the time went by OK.

The major reason for the actual amount of hours compared with scheduled is that I managed to get out for some cross country skiing again this week, and, I didn’t fall over! I think it was more to do with sticky snow and easy grooves to follow really but I am telling myself it is because I have improved!

It was such a nice day on Saturday and because my long bike (Friday) wasn’t hugely long I decided it would be Ok to do my long run instead of Sunday morning at a horrible morning hour. I was scheduled for 2 hours but I have a bad memory of the other 2hr run I did a month or so ago. It was a lonely, cold experience. From memory I think it was 13.1 miles in 2hrs 6 mins. So, of course I decided I had to at least do a minute longer than that to make sure I felt that I was making progress Well, I set out on the roads from home on a reasonably hilly course - enough to get my HR up to z4 up the hills whether I liked it or not! At 6.55miles (half a half marathon) I noticed that I was just about 10 seconds over an hour. Brain goes into gear and I am feeling good (took 2 gu’s with me on this run plus Gatorade and water) so I decided that I could make an effort to break 2 hours for the half marathon distance. Unfortunately it didn’t get any less hilly and at mile 12 I knew it was going to be close - very close. I must have done that last mile and a bit completely in zone 4 and 5 BUT I made it - by 8 seconds. So I am feeling pretty chuffed with myself. However, I think I overdid it a bit as it took all the way home (seriously - all the way home) which was another mile and a quarter before my heart rate dropped into top of zone 2.

One of my other runs of the week I did on snowy trails in Mendon Park with the dog. I love it down there in the woods, it is so peaceful and pretty. However this run was hard work! The trails I ran were not particularly packed down and where they were it was easier to run in ankle deep snow on the edge of the trail than on the slippery surface. This run had many benefits to the feet - strength (hauling in and out of snow, including sinking to calf depth a couple of times), massage (over some bumpy terrain) and flexibility (just to keep upright!). Needless to say I wasn’t concerned with pace on this one.

I had a bit of a mental break this week with swimming. On one of the sessions I did a workout from Mary which focused on stroke and drills rather than freestyle. I did it on my own and it was really nice to have no pressure to go fast or make certain times and so I just swam. Some of the drills I had never done before and were clearly designed to drown/ improve swimming along the bottom of the pool. It was a refreshing change though and I joined my usual swimming partner at masters on Thursday feeling a lot happier.


20 WEEKS TO GO