I ended my last week with the aim of getting more sleep in week eight – I didn’t exactly succeed. I will keep trying though. Like eating well (and enough) it’s a necessity, rather than a luxury, but somehow it’s always the first thing to slip when I’m busy. I need more hours in the day…
Week eight was a good, but busy week. I felt like I worked pretty hard, so hopefully it’s going to pay off in the long term.
Monday – yoga/three easy miles
Monday was fairly usual for me, I went to a yin yoga class at lunchtime at Yoga Hero, which felt really great for my back as there were lots of supported forward folds. I had a fairly long, but productive day at work, then went to Run Talk Run. We had a lovely run/walk around Leeds, and it was quite a nice evening so it felt good to get out and move, as well as have a catch up. After RTR, I went straight to choir practice (Monday is always a long and busy day), but we finished early as a subset needed to practise for something that was happening on Saturday which I wasn’t taking part in. It felt a bit like getting out of school early! I really enjoy choir, but the prospect of an earlier night and a bit more rest made me very happy.
Tuesday – Pilates/club run (7-9 miles)
I did go into work fairly early on Tuesday, so my early night didn’t exactly result in extra sleep, but I felt much better for having had more time to wind down. At lunch I headed to my usual Pilates class, which was mostly focussed on abs this week, though there were some exercises that stretched out my hamstrings as well so that was good. I’m hoping this is all going to help with being stronger for longer when running. I worked a fairly long day on Tuesday as well, as an afternoon meeting ran over, then headed out for the club run in the evening. We did a hill session around Horsforth, five different hills, three efforts on each. I really enjoyed the run, not pushing myself to my total limit but definitely getting the heart rate up. The run ended up being nine miles in total by the time I had cooled down after the hill efforts.
Wednesday – mobility/8 easy miles
Since I’d worked long days Monday and Tuesday, I took an extra long lunch on Wednesday to go for my run. I did three miles with the work social run group, then another five on my own. The weather was beautiful, I felt great, my pace was good – all in all, it was a lovely lunchtime.
Going for a longer run than normal did mean that I didn’t get to the gym to do my mobility exercises, and there was no time after work as I had a sports massage booked. The amazing Dalia sorted out my tired legs for me and my ankles suddenly felt much looser! I met Mark and we headed out for dinner for a treat, and then managed to book some holiday travel (lots of trains!) for later in the year.
Thursday – strength/long efforts (3*1.25mile) + mobility
Thursday held the promise of pizza for lunch, as our team was being treated to Dominos to celebrate getting the Android version of our new app released to the Play Store. However, I was determined to go to the strength class, so I ate a small amount of pizza when it arrived (I still had 45 minutes for it to settle) and stuck some on a plate to save for after, and went to the gym as planned. It was so tough! After a decent warm up with a few exercises flung in, we did five rounds of five exercises: deadlifts (with a kettlebell), press-ups, reverse lunges (holding a kettlebell), seated banded rows, and sit ups holding a plate up in the air (the kind you put on a barbell, not the kind you put your dinner on). The number of reps decreased each round: 20, 16, 12, 8, 4. Press-ups in particular kill me, my arms were like jelly. And my legs actually. Thank goodness I had pizza ready for after!
After work, I signed up for the Northumberland Coastal Run (in July), and did some yoga (day 11 of the Yoga with Adriene journey). I then did the club winter training session, which is a warm up, then three efforts that are each about 1.25 miles long, with about 0.4 mile recovery jog in between (and then a cool down to run home). It’s a really hard session, as it’s a hilly loop and pretty much all of the downhill falls into the recovery bit, which is quite unfortunate (or, as is probably the case, intentional). There’s a gain of about 170ft per effort, and most of that comes in the last half mile of it – it’s a long drag! I find it hard to be enthused about this session since it’s so tough (and jelly limbs from the gym didn’t help) but I did kind of enjoy it, and really felt like I was putting the effort in at least. Including warm up and cool down, I ran 8.5 miles.
Friday – core/5 easy miles
Somewhat predictably, I switched my run and rest days around. I went to a core class at the gym at lunch, which was fairly tough, especially given that I was starting to feel sore from Thursday’s strength class. I enjoyed it though, and felt like I was ready to start the weekend afterwards. Once I got home, I did some more yoga (day 12 of Yoga with Adriene) which was very nurturing and restful, then headed out for the club’s annual social night, which was fun. I ate a lot of cake.
Saturday – rest – 18 miles long run
In order to have some company on my long run, I swapped my days around even more, and headed out early on Saturday morning for this week’s long run. I was shattered, having not had enough sleep one single night so far this week (and especially after the social evening the night before). I also felt a bit dehydrated, though I’d only had a couple of glasses of wine so didn’t feel too bad. My body was achy from the gym though, so I was a bit apprehensive about this run. As it turned out, it was fine. I usually run my long runs fairly slowly, but after a few miles on my own I met up with Steve and we ran a bit faster than usual. He had planned a route, which meant I didn’t have to worry one jot about where we were going! We did 13 miles together, putting the world to rights, and then I did a couple of miles on my own (it was a mile back home from our start/end point anyway) to finish off the run. I felt fairly good, all things considered, and took one gel during the run, partly for some energy and partly to start getting my body used to them for the marathon. I definitely enjoyed the run, and the miles ticked by pretty quickly – I was home by 10:15.
I managed to have a nap in the afternoon, which felt amazing, and then did a bit of yoga in the evening before having a super early night.
Sunday – 18 miles – 5 easy miles
Having switched my training runs around, I was left with five easy miles for Sunday. I woke up feeling much more refreshed than I had done all week, and didn’t have to get up early so I was able to have a lazy couple of hours in my PJs. I did day 14 of Yoga with Adriene (not exactly catching up, but I’m not falling further behind at least), which felt great – I’m finding the regular yoga really beneficial mentally, and I think physically it’s doing me good as well, though my upper arms are pretty sore from so much time in plank and downward dog!
I headed out late morning for five easy miles with Tommy and Natalie. It was really nice to not worry about pace (I didn’t even look at my watch, other than to check how far we had run towards the end of the run) and to have a chat. It started raining as we set off and got heavier throughout the run, but the hot shower when I got home felt great at least! It felt weird not doing my long run on Sunday morning, but I quite enjoyed having more free time on Sunday.
I used some of my extra free time to do some decluttering in the hallway (I’m on a mission to do the whole house), which meant sorting out all my trainers! The running shoes all survived :p. And no, I rarely wear proper shoes…always trainers!
All in all it was a good training week. 52 miles in total for the week, and my legs felt great after the long run, which is positive. I didn’t do so well at getting more sleep, but I did do well at doing more glute exercises, so I guess that’s an improvement at least.
The next two weeks don’t involve so much mileage due to races, but there are some tough sessions in there so I don’t expect them to be easy. I really am going to try to improve my sleep this week though!
jenniferlucie runs 