It was so much easier when my posts were titled "Such and such race week x / y"; now I actually have to think of something.
Last week Father's day in Spain fell on Thursday, which, as it was San José was also a Bank Holiday throughout most of the country. It was just as well because I felt like I needed a bit of breathing space to psych myself up for what I find to be a quite demanding workout: 2 x 5K at 3:38 with 3% incline. (In the past I have done as much as 10K like this.) It is psychologically tough because my training usually prepares me well for two types of suffering: long and boring or short and sharp. The problem with this workout is that 18 minutes is quite a long time to go without a break. The trick I found was to watch the video I recorded of running around London with "macarra" drum 'n' bass music in the background: this was just the right level of distraction as I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on anything more intellectual. And, by the way, I had a very enjoyable Father's day, thanks to my lovely family.
I have had to juggle my running shoes to manage the blister that cropped up on my foot from running a little too enthusiastically with my new shoes last week. Amazingly I managed to conserve the flap of skin which very conveniently attached itself back on to my foot while the new skin grew underneath (who needs Compex?) but it wasn't hardy enough to withstand much abuse. On the other hand, the discomfort from my Morton's Neuromas (what is the plural of neuroma? Neuromae?) came back almost immediately with the Vibrams, something to do with the extra compression around the metatarsal heads. It's a shame that I have to more or less abandon running in them, when I was going so well.
The plan for Sunday's brick was something shorter but more intense and close to race pace. I ran 25 minutes at 16 kph (3:45 /km) followed by an hour on the turbo trainer more or less in the aero position (more less than more) and 20 minutes running at 16 kph - although I have to confess that I found my heart rate climbing and I started to get out of breath, so I broke this last section into more manageable chunks of 5 minutes with a short break to get my breath back. The idea wasn't to "kill myself" but, of course, it would have been nice to have completed the workout as originally planned. Still, I was pretty happy with myself and felt correspondingly tired the rest of the day.
As far as my weight goes, I think I've done a pretty good job of shaking off the excesses of the festive period and getting down to racing weight, as my Withings scale shows:
You can also see how, in spite of the variability - in the case of "fat mass", due to measurement error, but in the case of "weight", due to water retention / sweating etc - that there is a clear downward trend. Apart from it being a nice gimmick to have your scales automatically record and upload your stats, it really is the only way to see if you are on track or not.
Last week Father's day in Spain fell on Thursday, which, as it was San José was also a Bank Holiday throughout most of the country. It was just as well because I felt like I needed a bit of breathing space to psych myself up for what I find to be a quite demanding workout: 2 x 5K at 3:38 with 3% incline. (In the past I have done as much as 10K like this.) It is psychologically tough because my training usually prepares me well for two types of suffering: long and boring or short and sharp. The problem with this workout is that 18 minutes is quite a long time to go without a break. The trick I found was to watch the video I recorded of running around London with "macarra" drum 'n' bass music in the background: this was just the right level of distraction as I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on anything more intellectual. And, by the way, I had a very enjoyable Father's day, thanks to my lovely family.
I have had to juggle my running shoes to manage the blister that cropped up on my foot from running a little too enthusiastically with my new shoes last week. Amazingly I managed to conserve the flap of skin which very conveniently attached itself back on to my foot while the new skin grew underneath (who needs Compex?) but it wasn't hardy enough to withstand much abuse. On the other hand, the discomfort from my Morton's Neuromas (what is the plural of neuroma? Neuromae?) came back almost immediately with the Vibrams, something to do with the extra compression around the metatarsal heads. It's a shame that I have to more or less abandon running in them, when I was going so well.
The plan for Sunday's brick was something shorter but more intense and close to race pace. I ran 25 minutes at 16 kph (3:45 /km) followed by an hour on the turbo trainer more or less in the aero position (more less than more) and 20 minutes running at 16 kph - although I have to confess that I found my heart rate climbing and I started to get out of breath, so I broke this last section into more manageable chunks of 5 minutes with a short break to get my breath back. The idea wasn't to "kill myself" but, of course, it would have been nice to have completed the workout as originally planned. Still, I was pretty happy with myself and felt correspondingly tired the rest of the day.
As far as my weight goes, I think I've done a pretty good job of shaking off the excesses of the festive period and getting down to racing weight, as my Withings scale shows:
You can also see how, in spite of the variability - in the case of "fat mass", due to measurement error, but in the case of "weight", due to water retention / sweating etc - that there is a clear downward trend. Apart from it being a nice gimmick to have your scales automatically record and upload your stats, it really is the only way to see if you are on track or not.
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