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Did my final tough session this morning, before Sunday's race...
55 mins on the stair-climber. Managed 3950ft. Absolutely gunned it for the last 5 mins to try and reach the magic 4000ft, up to level 19 at one point, which for me is running pace up the climber. I can sustain a very rapid walk up to level 18 for a few minutes. But I fell short of 4000ft by probably 25-30 seconds.
Certainly feeling physically fit for Sunday. Getting my excuses in early though.... quite a sore blister, and still blighted by an ear infection, but really over the course of 8 or so miles I shouldn't be letting these things affect me.
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Second time this year: going the wrong way while on a route that I have been using regularly for years.
This time I was daydreaming while running through the Outwoods, and completely missed a turn. I realised that the path didn't look right, but only worked out where I was when I arrived at the next path junction.
Back in September, I was on a path along the bottom of a meadow in the Woodbrook valley, where there is a strip of rough land between the path and the brook. At one point, the path cuts across the rough land to cross the brook. The hay had been cut, and the agricultural machinery had turned the narrow path into a broad track, which went straight on to the end of the meadow instead of turning off; while the path turning off across the rough ground was almost concealed by the growth of nettles etc around it. I missed the turning, went back and missed it again, and eventually found it on the third pass. I have been going that way at least twice a month (when not injured) for nearly 30 years, and that has never happened before!
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Club night tonight and 'home turf' for me with some hill reps.
20 reps, all quite runnable, with probably a maximum gradient of about 12-13%
A little heavy-legged from racing on Sunday, but maintained my usual position within the group for hill sessions, i.e. near the front. Didn't quite have the spring in my step to really go with maximum effort though.
Next week or so is all about getting ready for first weekend in December. Xc league on the Saturday and Cardington Cracker on the Sunday, will be a very hard weekend, but last races of the year so might as well go out with a bang!
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Club run tonight, 7 miles around the dark and cold roads of south-west Coventry.
There were only 5 of us doing the "full" run... a larger group took a shorter route. Once they had left us we really upped the pace and pushed each other hard, all having a go at breaking the rest of the group! I pushed it hard up a long hill and was rather downbeat to find the others only 10 yards or so behind me at the top! Eventually one guy succumbed with about a mile to go and dropped off the back by about 45 seconds, and I was dropped by about 20 yards come the end, but it was a good hard run in a group with similar ability.
Hoping to put in a long run at the weekend. Might just limit it to a half marathon and see what sort of time I can achieve. Hopefully somewhere in the low 1hr30's....
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13 cold miles this morning. Out to the coventry canal then a turn onto the Ashby-de-la-Zouch canal, and back along the roads. 1hr45 - was unable to have a bash at a fast time after doing a pretty monstrous legs/squats workout yesterday.
Weighed myself this morning and down to 79.5kg which is the lightest I've been since my Muay Thai fight in early 2015 (weighed in at 77.3kg on that day). So the diet and training is paying off, as I spent most of the first half of this year hovering between 83-84kg.
Feeling pretty spent after a hard weeks training, topped off with a big weights session yesterday and today's outing. Hopefully get at least one tough session in next week before two races next weekend to finish off the racing year.
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Good work Travs on both the training and keeping the thread going
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6 x half mile reps on a bitterly cold evening. 2 minute recovery between reps. First rep was slowest at 6 min/mile pace, building up to a final fastest rep at 5:40/mile pace.
The final couple of reps were tough to maintain, even given the reasonable recovery time. Then I come home and read about Kenny Stuart doing mile reps at around 4:20 pace, and you really see how you compare (or not in my case!).
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Well done travs,
I don`t really bother about what I do daily but I do keep an eye on what I do periodically and so far this year I have recorded 5754.3 Km ( would like to make 6500Km for the year, but doubt that I will ) my current recorded ascent for the year is 136,252 mtrs so all in all I am relatively happy that I am ticking over ok :)
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John K that sounds like a heck of a lot! I'm the opposite to you, I keep no regular record of my training distance or ascent, only the various sessions I record on here. I do other sessions as well, in fact training twice a day at the moment, but only record my real structured sessions on here (when I remember).
Tonight was a steady run out in the cold, 6.75 miles on the roads. Well it was supposed to be steady, but I ended up pushing a little harder than I would've liked, in order to keep up with a few people in front of me. That's my own fault, I should be more disciplined and stick to my pace! But we were by no means running each other into the ground like we did last Thursday...
Xc (10km) and Fell Race (9 miles/2600ft) this weekend, so will be a tough one. But with the various endurance ambitions I have for next year and beyond, really I need to be capable of breezing through this weekend without too much trouble. We'll see next week!
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Hope you achieve your goals this weekend and beyond travs.