Back to Bad Decisions

As I had tapered somewhat for the week of the Boyne 10k, I wanted to put in a high mileage week this week.

Normally after the hard sessions, of which Boyne most definitely was one, I would normally take the next day as a rest day. I have been finding that it works best for me that way, the easy recovery run concept does not work well in my particular case.
However, as Monday was a nice day, and I had a late start that morning at work, I ventured out.
The first few miles were tough, but as normal, after 4 miles I was warmed up and running pretty easily, so I extended the planned 6 miles to 9.

Tuesday is normally 'tempo Tuesday', and this week,min keeping with the higher mileage concept, the tempo section was to be 9 miles, undecided at the outset between 6:20 or 6:25 pace.
On the warmup mile, it was obvious it was going to be 6:25, I was really feeling the effort.
I set off at the 6:25 pace, and while mile 1 was 6:19, the effort felt like 6:00 minute pace, and I knew this would not be going to plan. Mile 2 6:21. There was no way I was going to push out 9 miles of this effort, so I adjusted the plan. 3x3 miles was the fallback, and so i finished the set on the next mile, with 6:21 average for the 3 miles.
3 minute rest, then off again. The first two miles actually felt good, and at 6:17 and 6:19 I was ahead, but mile 3 again was tough at 6:20 with a loss of form again starting to show itself towards the end of the rep. The object was to try to maintain form, so I broke the next three miles down further to a 1x2 mile, and just a 1 mile to finish. The two mile set went well, and the 1 mile I pushed hard, particularly towards the last 200m, with a 6:11 mile.
Well I was spent! Two miles home again were very hard to slog out, but with 12 miles for the session, it was a really good workout.

I did take Wednesday off!

Thursday is speed day. There is the club 5k coming along shortly, so two miles to warmup, and then 5x1k on the track, with a jog recovery for 200m between each k. The pace was supposed to be my planned 5k pace, but as I haven't run a 5k in a very long time, I set the watch to what I now consider a reasonable 1 mile effort at 5:50. Even tough I was running in kilometres, measured by track distance, the watch was still sounding out at each mile. 5:28, 5:36, 5:42. I finished the session with a 1 mile loop at 5:51, and two easy miles to home, for just under 9 miles in total.

So ordinarily, I would have taken Friday as a rest day after the speed session, but in order to build mileage, I ran Friday. 6 miles, and they felt really difficult. I struggled through every step, and I knew after two miles that it had been a mistake to go out, particularly as I had been up before 5 am to work that day.
Normally, Saturday has been a 9 or 12 mile very hilly run, but this Saturday, after the disastrous run the day before, I struggled with a 9 mile run on a flat course, again feeling very low on energy, and dragging myself around.
Sunday was not much better. I had planned for 13 miles at 7:20 pace. For some reason, my garmin decided not to co-operate, and try as I might, it would not lock on to a signal, so I just left it behind.
Again, I was feeling a bit drained of energy, so I just ran to fell at an easy pace, and I have no idea what it was. I do know I covered 12.5 miles, as it was a course I have run many times.

So in a way the objective was achieved. I did two pretty good sessions, but the weekend was a writeoff, and I did 58 miles or so, so again I achieved the high mileage objective. However, the Friday 6 miles was a mistake, and I will learn from it, and go back to what is working for me.