This is exactly where I find myself today…..it is now Wednesday and I have not run since Saturday. I am already 10miles down this week and staring at 20miles on Friday. I have due to circumstances been forced to change my plan for this week. This week was set to be a 48mile week but will now be something like a 28mile week. I have basically been feeling run down, Sunday I felt tired, lethargic, hungry and had a sore throat. This continued into Monday and I took the day off sick. Tuesday not much better and today, Wednesday, finally feeling normal again and planning a run.
I think that I have found myself in this situation for a couple of reasons which are nutrition and weather related!
Simply I don't think that I have been eating enough. I have probably maintained the same calorie intake over the past 6 weeks as I would normally. Put that in context of the increases in training I am doing and it's not a good combination. Since Saturday I have eaten like a horse (craving carb heavy food; buns, bananas, milk shakes and bread) I really feel like I am refuelling and loading up. As my training picks up again I need to make sure my intake matches the output, I don't need to lose weight and it is vitally important to be correctly fuelled. The other factor I mentioned was the weather.
On Saturday my football team 'Leckhampton Rovers Cougars U10's' had two league fixtures. The games went ahead despite horrendous conditions. High winds, rain and low temperatures. After having run on Friday morning and Saturday morning standing on a touchline in the freezing cold was probably not the best recovery.
In hindsight these are pretty obvious and something that I should have considered myself before they happened. But I didn't and so here we are. So long as I don't make the same mistake again all will be ok!
In terms of my training I am pleased with my progress to date. I am 6 weeks into my training plan and have run 190miles. My mileage has increased in line with the training schedule and I have been maintaining reasonable mins per mile. Last week was a 40.1 mile week at an avg. of 07:21. I am not breaking any records with my times but for me they are decent and not suffering too much from an increase in mileage. As I said before this week was to be a 48mile week with then next week a recovery week with mileage of 36miles. I am going to revise the schedule so that this week becomes a 28'ish mile week. Next week will be the 36 and then back into it. Essentially I will be missing a 20mile long run but will make up for it in week 9 which will be a 52mile week with a nice 22mile long run!
Training so far…..
| Wk | Week Beginning | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Plan Miles | Actual Miles | Time | Avg min per mile | ||||||||||||||
| Plan | Actual | Time | Plan | Actual | Time | Plan | Actual | Time |
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| Plan | Actual | Time | Plan | Actual | Time | Plan | Actual | Time | ||||||
| 1 | 05-Oct-09 | 2.0 | 3.11 | 00:20:13 | 2.0 | 3.11 | 00:22:06 | 2.0 | 3.26 | 00:23:42 |
|
|
| 8.0 | 8.70 | 01:03:43 | 6.0 | 6.22 | 00:45:49 | 0.0 |
|
| 20 | 24.4 | 02:55:33 | 00:07:12 |
| 2 | 12-Oct-09 | 2.0 | 3.11 | 00:21:11 | 2.0 | 3.11 | 00:20:45 | 4.0 | 4.38 | 00:30:50 |
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|
| 10.0 | 9.84 | 01:12:36 | 6.0 | 6.22 | 00:43:40 | 0.0 |
|
| 24 | 26.7 | 03:09:02 | 00:07:05 |
| 3 | 19-Oct-09 | 2.0 | 3.11 | 00:20:18 | 2.0 |
|
| 4.0 | 4.34 | 00:31:30 |
|
|
| 12.0 | 13.05 | 01:34:35 | 8.0 | 8.70 | 00:58:59 | 0.0 |
|
| 28 | 29.2 | 03:25:22 | 00:07:02 |
| 4 | 26-Oct-09 | 2.0 | 2.00 | 00:13:16 | 4.0 | 4.00 | 00:27:40 | 6.0 | 6.34 | 00:43:59 |
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|
| 14.0 | 4.60 | 00:44:51 | 8.0 | 0.00 | 00:00:00 | 0.0 | 15.53 | 02:02:38 | 34 | 32.5 | 04:12:24 | 00:07:46 |
| 5 | 02-Nov-09 | 4.0 | 0.00 | 00:00:00 | 4.0 | 4.34 | 00:31:28 | 6.0 | 6.31 | 00:46:00 |
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| 16.0 | 16.52 | 02:03:24 | 10.0 | 10.15 | 01:15:57 | 0.0 |
|
| 40 | 37.3 | 04:36:49 | 00:07:25 |
| 6 | 09-Nov-09 | 4.0 | 4.00 | 00:27:52 | 6.0 | 0.00 | 00:00:00 | 6.0 | 7.16 | 00:50:17 |
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| 18.0 | 18.65 | 02:22:18 | 10.0 | 10.35 | 01:14:51 | 0.0 |
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| 44 | 40.1 | 04:55:18 | 00:07:21 |
Main lesson learned – listen to your body!
