Wednesday 30 March 2016

You may recall that just over a month ago, I captured some thoughts about starting to layer on some distance, now that, I believe, the correct gait is embedded at slow speeds (8 minute miles) - here.

I chose to move along the blue line on the graph, which I've shown again below.  Since then, I've done what I said I would.  Almost!

I said that, in moving along the blue line, I'd start adding distance to the base, and I have done that. I've even hit my highest mileage week ever at 81.5 miles, but crucially all at the speed that I know my gait can be maintained.

I've also been greedy, and made a couple of mistakes!

So, 99% of the miles have been "well behaved" miles, sticlking to the blue line, adding distance but no speed.

However, I've been missing my Southampton AC club mates, and in particular the Tuesday Night Track Session.  So I've been along a couple of times, and, you've guessed it, done a couple of sessions at 5:30 pace or quicker.

And both times, I've had to take off a couple of days to recover from it.  And not just general ache, but genuinely menacing pains, one in the left ankle, right hip and left big toe.

This means that I was trying to jump up the blue curve to that "NOT YET!" arrow.  This is bad.  I must move up that curve gradually, or face longer lasting injuries.

I'll still go along to the sessions - I love running with the group too much.  But I MUST drop back a couple of groups, run at the green "Target pace" arrow, and start to layer the speed on gradually

Discipline!