As promised I have not been very active on this blog for a while after the NDW50 climax. It is in a way a reflection of my state. After months of trepidation and preparation, after finishing the 50 miles I did not have anything \u201cbig\u201d to look forward. I felt a bit empty. I am running 2 half and a full marathon in the next 2 months, but they are not the same as preparing for an ultra. I missed a bit having that event to look forward to.<\/p>\n
That did not stop me from enjoying running and I kept training\u00a0at least 6 times a week. I ran less, but faster. I have worked on trying to get some speed back in my legs. I slowed down quite a lot in the final months before the NDW50. I have been looking at my Strava from last year and I was at least 15 sec\/km faster in all my training sessions. So I made sure to have at least one interval session a week and if possible a tempo run.<\/p>\n
The first week I did an easy 10k run<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday, a speed session on Wednesday (3k WU + 5x(500m at<3:40 + 1:30r) + 4k CD<\/a>. Then on Thursday I did 15k but I was really tired. I did a sort of progressive run<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Friday I did a 5k warm up and then 5k going at 3:50 min\/km<\/a>. I was quite tired by the end of the week but I decided to test my speed by taking part in the Bushy Park Parkrun that I had not done in ages. They had to change the course so I was curious to try it. It is still a very nice run except for a bit at the start where if you do not run at 3:30 min\/km you might find yourself stuck with a lot of people going through a small grassy area. The day after I had a little accident. I wanted to go for a long run but I was really tired. So much so that I was not careful enough and kicked a rock and tumbled on the ground, in the mud. I got up and washed my bloody hands and knees in the river Thames and started running again as if nothing had happened, but I was not feeling too good. I only run 15 more km<\/a> and went home. My left toe was not in a good shape and when I removed my socks I was scared of what I would find. It was not too bad but it affected the next week.<\/p>\n Overall it was an 85k week<\/strong>, shame for the Sunday fall.<\/p>\n The second week of my speed training started badly. On Tuesday \u00a0I did 10k<\/a> in the rain and wind to see if my toe was ok. It was not too bad but I ran with a different form and ended up making my ankle hurt a lot. I could not walk by the end of the day. So I rested for one day and ran again on Thursday and did 15k<\/a> to get rid of all the thai food and beer I had the day before with my wife. And so I completed another 85k week<\/strong>. I was quite happy with the average weekly pace increase.<\/p>\n Next week I will keep on working on speed and see if I can get some nice results.<\/p>\n Have fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As promised I have not been very active on this blog for a while after the NDW50 climax. It is in a way a reflection of my state. After months of trepidation and preparation, after finishing the 50 miles I did not have anything \u201cbig\u201d to look forward. I felt a bit empty. I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,44,65],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bushy-park","tag-parkrun","tag-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luigifumero.com\/run\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI enjoyed it a lot. I did not do my PB but I was close. I finished 14th overall in 18:20<\/a>. I was first in my age category which is a nice thing. I ran most of the race with a 13 year old kid that was very impressive. I overtook him the first km and thought I would never see him again and instead he steadily caught up with me and finished 2 positions ahead. Nice one!<\/p>\n
\nOn Friday I did 12 more km<\/a>, at a relatively quick pace. Saturday I went for a longer run. I had not run more than 15k for quite a bit, so it was good to go out for longer. I did 31k at 4:44<\/a> . Wonderful sunny day on the river. Loved it. I completed the week with 15k at 4:27<\/a>. I was definitely feeling better and getting over the toe issue.<\/p>\n