As I arrived to the gym the other day, there was an announcement over the Tannoy welcoming me to the changing rooms! Actually, the announcement in Spanish was "Bienvenido, a los vestuarios" and the comma was key: Bienvenido ("Welcome") is the name of one of the cleaners, believe it or not. And don't imagine the son of a pop star with a penchant for quirky names: Bienvenido is one of the classic Spanish names, like Modesto, Justo, Dolores ("Pains")...
As usual, I ran all my easy runs much faster than I should have and, although it seemed to have no negative bearing on Tuesday's speed session, which went pretty much to plan even if it was a bit of a struggle to keep the pace up for the longest interval of one mile.
I think I paid the price instead on Sunday. I was careful to fuel up the night before, so the run itself went well, but it was a toughie (rather like the Madrid Marathon course) in that it was downhill until halfway and then all uphill, with a total climb of 284 metres. My watch seemed to agree - it told me that I had "overtrained" and that I should wait at least 72 hours before my next hard run (planned just 48 hours later). I may have eaten well beforehand, but I neglected to eat well after, eating only a small bowl of fabada (Asturian bean soup) and a couple of slices of toast with olive oil all day. Perhaps as a result, I felt quite listless and even slightly down, to the point that I pulled out of the tango class that I have been going to with my wife (initially slightly reluctantly, but then with growing enthusiasm).
Interestingly (at least I find it so), this was reflected quite clearly in my resting heart rate which has been quite consistently around 38 bpm for the last few weeks. On Sunday night it was 45, which was about the highest it got after a month or so of detraining following the New York Marathon. Otherwise my VO2Max continues to climb steadily (touching 64 only to come back down a notch after Sunday's strain) and my % fat is starting to plummet again.
I'm off to London tomorrow and then a week of skiing next week. Long time readers of the blog will know that skiing and I don't really mix and generally try to avoid each other whenever possible, but I didn't want to go for too long without seeing the family. I think I will try my hand at Nordic skiing and hopefully manage to keep up my running training in the gym. I haven't run on a treadmill for a (record) number of months, so it will be odd at first no doubt.
Monday: 10 km @ 4:15 (track)
Tuesday: (speed) 400 - 800 - 1,200 - 1,600 - 1,200 - 800 - 400 w/ 400m recovery @ 3:04, 3:20, 3:27, 3:34, 3:29, 3:27, 3:22
Wednesday: -
Thursday: (tempo) 11.3 km @ 3:53
Friday: 11.3 km @ 4:12
Saturday: 13 km @ 4:17
Sunday: 22.5 km @ 4:11
Total kilometres: 81
VO2 Max (Garmin): 63 ml/kg/min
Resting pulse (average): 39 ppm
Fat (average): 7.2%
As usual, I ran all my easy runs much faster than I should have and, although it seemed to have no negative bearing on Tuesday's speed session, which went pretty much to plan even if it was a bit of a struggle to keep the pace up for the longest interval of one mile.
I think I paid the price instead on Sunday. I was careful to fuel up the night before, so the run itself went well, but it was a toughie (rather like the Madrid Marathon course) in that it was downhill until halfway and then all uphill, with a total climb of 284 metres. My watch seemed to agree - it told me that I had "overtrained" and that I should wait at least 72 hours before my next hard run (planned just 48 hours later). I may have eaten well beforehand, but I neglected to eat well after, eating only a small bowl of fabada (Asturian bean soup) and a couple of slices of toast with olive oil all day. Perhaps as a result, I felt quite listless and even slightly down, to the point that I pulled out of the tango class that I have been going to with my wife (initially slightly reluctantly, but then with growing enthusiasm).
Interestingly (at least I find it so), this was reflected quite clearly in my resting heart rate which has been quite consistently around 38 bpm for the last few weeks. On Sunday night it was 45, which was about the highest it got after a month or so of detraining following the New York Marathon. Otherwise my VO2Max continues to climb steadily (touching 64 only to come back down a notch after Sunday's strain) and my % fat is starting to plummet again.
I'm off to London tomorrow and then a week of skiing next week. Long time readers of the blog will know that skiing and I don't really mix and generally try to avoid each other whenever possible, but I didn't want to go for too long without seeing the family. I think I will try my hand at Nordic skiing and hopefully manage to keep up my running training in the gym. I haven't run on a treadmill for a (record) number of months, so it will be odd at first no doubt.
Monday: 10 km @ 4:15 (track)
Tuesday: (speed) 400 - 800 - 1,200 - 1,600 - 1,200 - 800 - 400 w/ 400m recovery @ 3:04, 3:20, 3:27, 3:34, 3:29, 3:27, 3:22
Wednesday: -
Thursday: (tempo) 11.3 km @ 3:53
Friday: 11.3 km @ 4:12
Saturday: 13 km @ 4:17
Sunday: 22.5 km @ 4:11
Total kilometres: 81
VO2 Max (Garmin): 63 ml/kg/min
Resting pulse (average): 39 ppm
Fat (average): 7.2%
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