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Sunday 9 January 2011

Space Cadet

Blog followers will have gathered that I safely survived the interval session on Tuesday night. It was by all means tough to be back running 1k reps especially with the ghastly uphill finish. The puzzling thing has been the continued difficulty in getting my heart rate into the right zone for these efforts; 90% I can just about do but 95% seems unreachable right now. I've been pondering the problem all week; I'm wondering if my efforts to build the quality through the training week are being inhibited by my old lady legs. 

The heart and lungs are happy and 'up for it' but the leg muscles just can't seem to go as fast as my lungs want them to. I'm beginning to assume this is a natural result of the last few months of patchy training. Though I've been keeping aerobic fitness topped up with steady running, I've missed so much of the tough stuff that the legs have some work to do to restore the muscle strength they once had. A steady 14 miles on Thursday saw my legs die well before my lungs as I desperately tried to reach threshold heart rate levels on the run.
Anyway, I'm not gonna be disheartened and will trust I'm building back race fitness, session by session, brick by brick. The adjustments to marathon volume will be taking their toll. 

A cheeky 5k cross country on Saturday morning was a welcome return to race pain; the Open Kross Challenge organised by fine local club Keighley AC is a great little event, held every second Saturday in the month. These are well organised and very friendly races offering a low key alternative to a speed session at the weekend. The event costs only a quid a go and gets the lungs working hard around the new permanent XC course at Cliffe Castle, Keighley. I knocked 40 seconds off my time from a month ago so felt some satisfaction as I struggled through the stiff early miles of the long run this morning. Another 20 miles logged in crazy windy weather. I'm now feeling very spaced, ready for a large bowl of curry and a Sunday telly marathon. Every session counts.

3 comments:

Steve said...

theres nowt better than doing bugger all 'cept eat and watch telly after a long run

ultra collie said...

sure it'll return rb..have you been smoking something illegal btw??? ;-)

kate said...

maybe that's where we're going wrong uc ;)

well done on the new pb, you must be doing something right. you're legs will come back.

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