TIME TO TRAIN

After a recovery week last week it was time to up the tempo and get training again, I do after all have a couple of big - long races on the cards and I don't want to leave it to late!

Now unlike so many people out there who think they need 18 weeks of training, I'll settle for 5 weeks. Look it's not like I'm coming from nothing, I'm never coming from nothing. So week 1 looked a little like this:

Monday, I was happy to take it easy and only run 10km on the road, it's been some time since I've run 30km tempo on the road, so I could feel it in the legs a bit!

Tuesday: Like all the good people out there I headed for the track, but the track was under water from the rains we've had in the Mother City, so I took the UCT boy to a road loop we have. It's 2km long and the 1st km is up ish while the 2nd is downish... They are all aiming at a fast 10km when week of my marathon, so while I should have been aiming at 8-10 x 1km reps they were aiming at 6 fast... I was slow on that first one up, but that will happen without strides (only because you asked 3:25).
Number 2 was down and I still had no speed 3:18. The fast boy were just over 3!!!
Back up 3:18, that was better and I had started to catch the weeker boys.
Down 3:06, Caught all the boys, but after shouting at one of them he ame back from the dead and beat me...
Up 3:19, I was working really hard and though I would be a lot faster!!!
3:09, no this isn't working, I'm running far to hard for those times and if I call it a day now, with the warm down I will have 13.5km for the day. It will just have to do.

Wednesday: and another easy run, this time 14.5km ran out of time, was wanting 16km but I had visited a shopping center!!!

Thursday: Track day, but the track is still a swomp and I don't want to mess it up, so it's off on the road again. I have another little loop, this one is 500m long and works well for the 400's... 79.2 for the first one, shoot me, that is too slow. Focus 60sec rest is up and we are off 78.1, 77.8 we are getting there, I thing the rest were all under 77. This running on the road is hard when running fast, I hope the sun dries the track this week. Only 10 400's this week, again to few, but with running back to the club I have 11.5km.

Friday: rest day, so I up at 05h00 for a little run around the block 6km.

Saturday: PUFfeR day!!! A 70-80km trail run from Cape Point to the Waterfront, NO I'm not running, but I'm going to pop up the mountain to see a couple of the guys go by. 2 of my CONTEGO team mate joined me and the 3 of us headed into the clouds. We looped through Valley of the gods around to Macclear's.

It wasn't that cold

This was a check point for the race and the guys were still a long way off. OK there where 25 really stupid runners who had started from the Waterfront on Friday and were running both ways (+_150km Andrie Gie won in 18h30 ish).

From here we headed back to the Nek, our starting point, and as we flew back (that is the highest point of the mountain so it is down hill the whole way (if you believe that you will also believe in the tooth fairy)). The slower "Tuffer Puffer" guys were on the route, but no Puffer guys. it was going to be a lot slower than last year. We were back at the cars park before the leaders came through.

That was 2h13 for 18.5km OK the single track and 1000m climb had slowed us down, I now had 25km for the morning having run from home to the start... was I running back, NO Dawn was fetching me as she also wanted to see some of the guys come through and the dogs needed walking...

Sunday: Now what is on every program for Sunday? A long run!!! So again I set off from home, but this time I was on my own and I tried to stick to the road and run a little faster... Another 25km done thing time 1h55:59 and that would have been a little quicker if I didn't end up on the top path in Cecelia Forest giving me 500m climb!
It was Summer here on Sunday and after 2 hours in the sun I had too:

 

 

 

Yes the water was cold, Yes I needed to rinse my shoes!