Monday January 4th: A very easy recovery run, and one of the shortest in a long time at 6.3km.
Tuesday January 5th: I try and run the Morningside hill circuit every Tuesday. The circuit consists of a mostly out and back route of 1.6km and and 1.8km, respectively and covers two hills out and three back. I headed out in the afternoon after a snowfall and found the hills to be too slippery to run properly so after completing one slow circuit I completed the run in High Park. 13.7km.
Wednesday January 6th: Wednesday evenings are Longboat club runs along a flat trail next to Lake Ontario. Tonight I ran with Rob Cambell and we did 4 X 6min intervals at about 4min/km pace with a 3 minute recovery. This was supposed to be a sub-anaerobic threshold to introduce some faster running in preparation for the first race of the season, the Robbie Burns 8k. It felt great to be running fast again after holding back over the last 6 weeks. 19.2km.
Thursday January 7th: No run. What can I say? This one got away from me.
Friday January 8th: Ran on the treadmill at the YMCA. Did 4X1 mile repeats with 2 minute recovery and an additional 1 mile of butt kicks and bounding on the track. 12.2km including warm up and cool down.
Saturday January 9th: Saturday morning run with Longboat at High Park. Did an 8km progression run to the north and west of the park in preparation for Robbie Burns race. An extra loop around the ring road brought the total to 10km.
Sunday January 10th: Loadsa Hills. Long run starting at the west end YMCA and headed west. This is a great route for getting serious hill running in. I lost count of the number of hills Rob and I climbed that morning. My legs were certainly feeling the effects of them by the end of it, and it was only a third of the Comrades distance. 30km.
So there it is, the first full week, one that had a day of slacking, a couple of days of faster running that felt great and my first run of 30km since the Hamilton Road2Hope Marathon on November 1st.
Total for the week: 91.5km
Year to date: 151km
Bruce was also doing weights three times a week during his training for the 1986 down run. He started the weight program after a particularly hard win in the 1982 down run when he raced Alan Robb from Botha's Hill to the finish, apparently the toughest part of the course. The weight work targeted quads, calves, stomach and back, the muscle groups most stressed when running downhill. In addition a little upper body work was added after realizing that runners use their arms a lot more to push themselves on when their legs are totally done.
So, I have to add some weights in here at some point. Better get on that.
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