I’m exhausted. No surprises in training for an ultra – the last week was my highest mileage ever in a week, 44.6 miles.
I know there are many folk out there who do a lot more. To be honest, I should as well given I’ve gotten a 50k trail race to do in 5 weeks. I’m happy – a 5k seemed tough at the beginning of the year so the fact I’m doing a 50k so soon is exciting. I know there will be walking and there will be hills. The plan is to treat it like a fun and long and exhausting day in the country and to enjoy it as much as I can.
The walking/running thing is taking some time to get used to.
On Saturday, with 18 miles to do and not having run this distance since the London Marathon, this was not going to be easy. It started with walking pretty early on, and then running, and then some more walking. I hit some short sharp hills in Greenwich Park – walk up and try and run down though a few were so steep this was tough. And there was a new snack combo made up of jelly babies, dates and dried broad beans, and took a few SiS Caffeine Gels which I had along the way. While the snack combo tasted fab at first, after about 12 miles of running in the heat, it was pretty gross. Perhaps for the salty addition I’ll try pretzels next time.
And it was hot – I think over the hours I drank about 3 litres of water. By the end of it I was a little like this…
I’m working on fast recovery so I’m taking the advice from the session I went to with Science in Sport in the run up to the London Marathon. You can read about it here.
And on Sunday, I walked a lot with a little running. My legs weren’t having any of this running malarkey. It was largely off-road and if I saw a short sharp hill, I went up it just because it was there. In doing this I’m not making it easy on myself but come race day, I’ll be glad I did. And there was great scenery to keep me going.
I’m slowly getting used to running in the heat. I’m also getting used to dripping sweat after about a mile. While for every run during daylight hours I wear 30+, I’m getting a lovely tan. I’m not so sure about the sock tan but there’s not much I can do about it.
Week starting 5 June
Monday – rest day; core and rolling
Tuesday – took the day off; core and rolling
Wednesday – a slow and steady 12 miles
Thursday – 4.6 miles slow and steady
Friday – core and rolling
Saturday – 18 miles with some walking and hills and stairs
Sunday – 10 miles; legs weren’t having any of it so mainly walked off-road, hitting as many hills as I could.
TOTAL – 44.6 miles
Thank you’s
A huge thanks to Science in Sport who sent me a package of goodies of supplements and caffeine shots – they know me well! I’ll be trying these out over the coming weeks and posting a review. Watch this space!
Happy training everyone!
(June 2017)