I have almost planned all the races I will do before taking part in the NDW50.
This is my schedule so far:
- 12 October 2014 Humanrace Garmin Kingston Run Challenge (25.7 Km)
- 10 November 2014 Dirt Running Half Marathon
- 16 February 2014 Trailscape Marathon
- 11 May 2015 NDW50
I think there is still room for another half marathon or a 10/30 Km trail race in December, early January, but I have not yet found any close enough to my part of London. Any suggestion is welcome.
I am very much looking forward the Kingston Run Challenge in a couple of weeks. Half of the route is on my usual training grounds, on the Hampton Court side of the river. I’ve done it last year (in 1:54) and did the very similar Whole Foods Market Breakfast Run (basically same course) in March (in a better 1:46). They are usually very well organised races. Plenty of participants, but not too crowded to make it problematic. Humanrace are top organisers and I suggest anyone to take part in their events whether is a running, cycling or swimming one (or all three together).
I don’t think this time I will be as fast as 1:46 as for the past month I have trained at a much slower pace, but I will still try.
Training this week was a lot more relaxing than last week. I am still following The Cool Impossible schedule and I have just finished the fourth week. It was a mostly recovery week, with 2 days of rest. In total I did 67.7 Km.
Monday was the usual 12.5k easy run.
Tuesday was a recovery day. 8 easy km. I did not feel like needing to recover, but I trusted the book.
Wednesday on the other hand I did not follow the book. I was supposed to do half an hour in Speed Zone 1, which is even slower than the slow days speed. After a recovery day and before a rest day? That did not make sense to me. Plus there were no speed training in the whole week. So I decided that the book was wrong and was supposed to say Speed Zone 2 and I aimed to run 30 minutes at a bit above 4:00 min/km (after the usual 15 minutes of warm up + sprints). I ended up running 7km at 3:57 min/km. I enjoyed it a lot. I used to basically do all my runs at that speed before deciding to train for longer distances and I was missing the feeling.
Thursday rest. Nothing. It felt strange to spend an extra hour and a half in bed. I still fell asleep on the train on the way to work.
Friday I did the same as Monday, my usual 12.5k route. Soon it will be so dark I will not be able to run on the river.
Today, Saturday, was the long run day, but as this is a rest week I was not to run more than Week 2, so I did 22.5 Km in Bushy Park and then Richmond Park, coming back via the Ham river side. As always: beautiful.
Next week it will be more challenging and then I will rest a bit before the race.