Weekly Summary 13.03.2016

Device: Garmin Forerunner 630

Notes

Last big mileage week before 100k taper including the final planned long run planned for Sunday ‘Lamer Marathon’. As per last week and following the 40 mile session on Sunday Monday was taken as full rest days including another MUCH NEEDED full legs sports massage by Dave Holmes. Tuesdays 12 miles was harder than expected but the legs did start to recover and seemed to be performing better for Wednesday BAC Marathon session BAC – 24 (5:54/m), 18 (5:51/m), 12 (5:48/m), 6 (5:39/m), 3 (5:23/m) where I managed to hit the target of each interval run at a quicker pace than the last. The sessions on Thursday and Friday again were more of a struggle on tired legs and I was happy to get them completed.

As the last weekend for taper approached it was time to get out my Brooks ST5’s, these are my racers that I used at London and will be using at the ACP100k.  I had forgotten how much lighter they are and they did seem to give me a bit extra for Saturdays half marathon session, the plan was more tempo running and with an average pace of 6:20 m/m’s I was pleased with the effort and progressive nature of the splits finishing the run closer to 6 m/m splits.

Sunday was the last big run before ACP and I had decided to use the Lamer Marathon as  the base, Lamer is a tough off-road undulating marathon and whilst I was looking to run a decent race I was more than aware that not over working on the effort and also NOT taking any silly risks and getting injured.  I also knew Jon would be running with me and he was planning an minimal effort win so was prepared to let him go at some point. As normal with White Start Running events the whole day was a fantastic experience and we were blessed with good weather, the first few miles were uneventful and over the course 3 hills we were hiking more than running.  Also a nice theme is the 3 races are staggered start so are 6 miles the Marathon runners catch the 20 milers who started later but don’t do a 6 mile loop to start. After about 19 miles and with my hamstrings feeling a little tight it was the point to watch Jon and Ian (Bedford) to break away and I settled into a decent pace to finish in 3rd place 2 minutes down in a time of 3:08. TAPER TIME Lamer Marathon 3rd (90 mile week) Taper Time

Diet \ Food Diary

Third full week, daily calorie target continued to 1760 base plus extra calories consumed dependent on the day’s activities (as shown in the ‘training by days’ table provided by Garmin). Later part of the week I was also consuming recover shakes as can be seen in my drinks log, also Sundays Morning snacks again include race fuel (Clif Shot Blocks and GU gels).  Saturday also saw the start of my standard pre ‘A Race’ beet-it shots adding to my normal beetroot in my diet. Starting Saturday I will take one beet-it sports shot per day for the 15 days build up including 1 on race day morning.