Jackie D - Week 34

Week 34 - starting Monday 7 May 2007

Scheduled hours: 14hrs 30mins
Actual hours: 14hrs 50mins

Still feeling good! However, at the end of this week after my long bike and long run in particular, my legs feel tired and I think this must be one of the few occasions where I am actually glad it is recovery week next week.

I did my long bike on my own this week. It felt harder than last week but I am sure there are lots of reasons for it - lack of company, started off feeling a bit more achey, hillier route and slightly faster pace. I went into new territory and at one point found myself cycling up hill (thankfully not too steep) for over 10 minutes. I was so looking forward to the downhill that must come afterwards. Then towards the top a big dog came out of its yard and started chasing me for a while. That was quite unnerving. There is a dog in my neighbourhood that does this but it is a lot smaller and although I try and avoid it, the size makes me think I could fight it off with my feet if need be, but this one was Alsatian size. Anyway thankfully it was near the top of an incline so I speeded up and just kept shouting “NO” at it and it eventually gave up. The big downhill was such a disappointment. It was a surface that every 20 metres or so there was a gap/bump in the road so it was an uncomfortable descent. Oh well!

I did my long run the day after the bike. Up until now I have kept these 2 a few days apart on purpose. I know, I know that the real event has them back to back but I have a bit of an “ostrich head in the sand” attitude at the moment to that. I did a couple of different loops from my house for this one so that I could take the dog for half of it (thought it a bit much to take her for the whole 3 hours). This actually worked very well because I could restock with drinks, gels, bathroom break at half way point. I will definitely consider doing this again.

A couple of good sessions ended my training week this week. An hour bike with Heart rate mostly in Zone 3. I did this on normal, rolling hill roads (meaning not the nice flat canal path) and was delighted to see an average speed just over 17mph. That maybe low for some, especially men but for a training ride with hills on it - that is fast for me! The last session was a 5k running race on Sunday. I was unsure about whether to do this or not given the short distance compared with training. But, last year, this was my first running race ever, and I wanted to see if I could beat last years time. I have to admit to being a bit concerned that I wouldn’t as I have been doing such a lot of long, slow stuff. However, I ran the 5k in 22:43 (compared to 24:41 last year) which is a 7:20/mile pace. Amazing! I never knew I could run so fast. I couldn’t have run further or faster - this was max! Never the less I am very happy to see the improvement.

Recovery week next week. I may even be able to get some gardening done.

10 WEEKS TO GO