Mileage for Week Four
Mon – 0 miles
Tue – 2.1 miles
Wed – 0 miles
Thu – 6.6 miles Instagram
Fri – 3.6 miles
Sat – 0 miles
Sun – 10.3 miles Instagram
Total – 22.6 miles
Another decent weeks running. I started off the week attempting hill sprints, which was good and bad!
I ran a 1.3 mile warm up to the particular hill and gave it my all in three sprints. I managed to my surprise, to get the course record! It’s a 13 second sprint so not all that long, even though it feels very long when running it.
Once I’d finished the third sprint, my world went a bit wobbly and my legs went to jelly. I decided to try and ‘run it off’ but that wasn’t happening and I had to cut the run short and just jogged home instead.
I wasn’t able to run on Wednesday as planned due to finishing work a little later than normal, so ran Thursday instead. It was a 60 minute run but I only managed 57 as my pacing was a little quicker than I had planned.
As my long runs are about to get much longer than I’ve ever run before, I want to make sure that I am able to stay hydrated. Dehydration has affected me a few times before and I don’t want to fall into that trap during training. I’d looked at Camelbak’s but they were to pricey for me, as are running vests that Ultra runners use. So I bought a small backpack that will hold my phone, keys, two spare water bottles and some energy sweets.
The 57 minute run was the first time I have run with a rucksack and it felt much better than I could have expected. Although I wasn’t refuelling on this run; I don’t expect to do that until I’m over 13 miles, it was useful to know that I will be comfortable.
I was up early on Sunday to complete my long run. My Sister and her family were visiting later in the day, so there was a time pressure to complete it, get home, showered, changed and get to my Dad’s house.
The alarm went off at 5am and I got myself some breakfast. I like to eat at least two hours before running. This time around I changed my usual porridge and peanut butter which has given me acid reflux recently on runs, to three Weetabix. Not wanting to go to bed, I watched a film ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)’ which I thought was very good. I gave it 4 stars out of 5 – I used to mention movies here once upon a time, I may do it again.
Whether it was the Weetabix or the two Clif Blox I ate on the run, but the run felt fantastic. I held an average pace of 8:38 /mile over the 10 miles. The fastest split coming at mile nine with a 7:51 /mile.
The Clif Blox are new for me too. I’ve tried gels but never felt they did anything for me and anyway they are really sticky as you squeeze it into your mouth! Mrs B bought me some Blox for Christmas as I had mentioned them. The recommended ‘dosage’ is massive, as in eat a whole packet before running.
I didn’t do that. I took two out with me and had one at around four miles in, and the second at around seven miles. As I said I felt great on the run, was it the Blox? I don’t know but I’ll experiment on my other long runs with them.
The rucksack performed amazingly as well. It was comfortable all the way around and having it on my back may have improved my ‘tired’ running posture as I felt like I was way more upright than normal.
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