Week 2 / 10 (and Happy Christmas!)

I'm in London this week, celebrating Christmas with my family. I'm sure to come back with a bit of excess baggage the way things are going. After being teetotal for 3 months prior to the Valencia Marathon and still not hitting my target, I might as well allow myself a few lapses.

I find that I run noticeably faster in London. Maybe it's the relative altitude, the fact that road running is faster than trail running or simply that I find a change of surroundings stimulating. For logistic reasons my hard training sessions ended up getting bunched up. I ran 14.3 km in an hour at a tad over aerobic pace on Thursday, 3 sets of progressively harder runs from 15 kph to 17 kph on Friday and 8 sets of 4 minutes at 17 kph with a 4 kg backpack on Saturday. Today just before a massive Christmas lunch I ran 2 hours at comfortably aerobic pace (148 beats per minute) and manages to cover just under 27 km running from South London to North London and back again. My legs are now aching for the first time since I can remember (from training). The 2 hour run was supposed to be a 2 hour cycle ride but I don't have access to a decent bike (other than a Boris bike).

Tomorrow is definitely going to be a day off to give my body time to adapt to the stresses of the last few days. The series I had scheduled for tomorrow will have to wait until Tuesday and, in any case, the gym where I plan to do them is closed tomorrow.

Hope you have all had a good Christmas!