Reflecting on the Week - 22nd March

Distance: 78.6 km
Time: 4:36
Elevation: 351 m
Max HR: 183 bpm

Tuesday was lactate and VO2 testing, it’s a fairly short but punchy session on the treadmill. A chance to check in and also meet up with Fletch in real life. The test was “ok”, a slight uptick in VO2 which is good to see, also no drop off in other zones where the focus hasn’t been.

After a discussion about where to push next we landed on running efficiency and muscular endurance. I’m finding that my top end speed is not lasting long, just feels a bit scrappy. With so much time spent on the engine, it’s time to deal with muscular endurance - the stuff that counts in the latter stages of the race.

Thursday kicked off the speed work, 10 × 1min/1min intervals at 3:30min/km - went well and held the splits, ranged from 3:26 - 3:33 until the last one where I pulled a 3:21min/km out. Good session, followed by a 15km in the evening.

Saturday was when the grim reaper arrived. 15km of warm up, then into the work. The session was 5 sets of 3km on and 2mins off, the 3km were targeting 4:15min/km pace. Well the first one I managed it, the next two I just about held on.. and then the fourth it unravelled. I had nothing in the tank, even the slightest incline killed me off. I guess this was the fatigue Fletch was hoping to find and train - well it was f**king working. I managed to finish the last one off without quite the pace drop off. But I was toast. A quick shower and change, annoyingly the gas valve on my van-shower was faulty and so it was a cold shower.

I grabbed a bit of lunch and then drove from Cheltenham to Tewkesbury - sitting in a van was not ideal. Time was not on my side, I had 15km to fit in and the big two kids were due to be done by 1615. It was only a couple of hours since finishing the 32km session with intervals…. and now I was putting my trainers on again.

It was 15km, but 10km was spent feeling like I was going to rent my lunch.. and then the last 5km felt like I was counting the metres. Session complete, on the pace, the week was done.

It’s Sunday now and I have to say, if yesterday was about fatigue and endurance - I give it a 10/10. Rest now and get ready for the next week.

VO2 and lactate testing.