This was going to be the first heavy week of training of my last 2 months before the North Downs Way 50 and I could not wait to start.<\/p>\n
My plan was to run more than 100km by going for a run every day except Monday and do 2 long runs back to back during the week end.<\/p>\n
Tuesday I started it easy with a 12k run at 4:4<\/a>0.Nothing to report.<\/p>\n Wednesday I went to Richmond Park armed with the Brooks Cascadia. I did 3.5k of warm up run to get there and then did 5 repeats of 400m each going uphill and then resting for the 400mt coming down. Quite a killer<\/a>. Then 4k of cool down to get back home.<\/p>\n Thursday for various reasons I could not go and do the 15k I had planned. That meant I had to ass more kilometers to the other runs. Then the week end arrived and it was time to run for longer and try to run slower than usual. I am not really good at that but I tried very hard. I also took advantage of the slower pace to think more about my running form and to get used to drinking and eating gels even if I did not feel like it. Contrary to that original feeling I woke up on Sunday full of energy and went out straight away for another run even if it was raining and very windy. I did 27km<\/a>, but slightly faster than Saturday, at 4:48 min\/km. I got home pretty happy about my performance and how quickly I seem to be able to recover after a long run.<\/p>\n I managed to make up for the kms I did not do on Thursday and ran a total of 101km<\/strong> (62k on the week end alone).
\nI started by doing 4k more than planned on Friday, the day that was set out to be a \u201ctempo run\u201d day. I ran 5k at an average\/slow pace as a warm up and then did 5k at around 3:50 min\/km average. The first 3 were quite tough, but once I got into the rhythm it felt good to run faster again. I finished the run off with 5 more km to get back home. Overall, 15k at 4:19<\/a>, not bad.<\/p>\n
\nOn Saturday I did 35km at an average pace of 5:06<\/a>. I explored a new area along the river and saw some very interesting places around Sunbury, Walton-on-Thames and Weybridge. As soon as the hot weather arrives there are some very interesting pubs on the river where I have already planned to cycle to with the family. At the end of the run I was pretty dead with very stiff legs and I could not imagine running again the day after.<\/p>\n
\nGood start for the final training push!<\/p>\n