The need for speeeeed – Week ending 2nd March 2014

I’d decided a while back that even though I might not have needed it exactly, I was going to have two easy weeks leading up to The Grizzly with one blast around Parkrun being the only significant effort in that time.

After upping my mileage and efforts from Christmas, this week was the first of my two easy weeks and dropping from 62, 72 and 70 mile weeks on the bounce to 30 was a nice treat!

I also had a nice chance to tweak my run to work to include a couple of trail paths to make basically a 7.5 mile commute without ever really having to hit much tarmac and got some lovely views on a rare fine day!

http://instagram.com/p/k34iZThMCS/

I also really wanted to stretch my legs at Parkrun and really try to get under the 18 minute barrier after coming close last time I ran it over Christmas with an 18:07.  I’m well pleased to say that I just about managed it and now have a new Parkrun PB of 17:54 which is great! Good to know the training has been building up the muscles and stamina.

Because it’s not so practical for me to go out mashing 30 or 40 miles every sunday, I’ve focusing on trying to get faster at shorter distances as I believe that in the ultras (30-50 milers) I’m targeting this year I’ll benefit from starting some specific speed work (hill sprints) shortly which I hope will lead to more improvement at 5 & 10k too because my “slower” pace will ultimately rise as a result of being generally faster.

One more week to the first A Race of the year and I’m looking forward to the challenge then it’s 2 ultras in 2 weeks after that!

  • Monday – 7.5 miles
  • Tuesday – 5.5 miles
  • Wednesday – 7.5 miles
  • Thursday – 6.4 miles
  • Friday – Rest
  • Saturday – 3
  • Sunday – Rest

Total: 29.8 miles 1,598 ft elevation.