This morning I was meant to run an early morning intervals session of 9*800m at 5k pace, with 400m jog in-between each set. That’s a tough session.
Instead I got up, played with my puppy and ate a grapefruit.
I say that so off-hand, but actually making the choice not to do the workout was a tough one.
The internet is full of memes, slogans, quotes etc like the one above, but I don’t think they are necessary. Most competing athletes tend to do too much, I think, rather than too little.
It’s hard to know when to rest, especially when your training plan is hammering away. I had a pretty killer track session on Wed night, which ended up being nearly 15km of speed work. Thursday morning early I got up and ran my 70 min easy, or as I logged it – “dead man’s shuffle.” While easy runs are supposed to be at an easy pace, I’ve run ultra marathons faster than I ran yesterday morning.
I should have taken yesterday off so I could have done a quality intervals session today. But it is what it is, and tomorrow I have 20 miles to run and I am deeply weary and to put it simply, my butt is killing me from the 200m sprints we did at the track. So I took a big breath and put my trainers back into the closet. For today.
I’ll be back tomorrow.
Weekly Update – last week
Last week was a decent training week. I got in two tempo runs, a track session, and a long run.
And some horse riding, as I mentioned last week! I’ve had some questions on the riding, so if you’re interested:
- My heart rate for a tempo run is usually around 175 bpm (beats per minute);
- my heart rate for an easy run is around 130-145;
- my heart rate while riding was around 100 when trotting and 120-145 while cantering.
This shows that riding – at least for me – is a good fat burning sport, but it really doesn’t burn a whole lot of calories compared to running or cycling. Good for core strength, though!
February totals: 56 hours
Swim: 5 km / 2 hours 18 min
Bike: 323 km / 11 hours 28 min
Run: 267 km / 24 hours 32 min
I’m always amazed at how marathon training (versus Ironman training) takes much less time overall, and yet I feel more tired… !