A recovery week building up to the Nationals Cross Country Championship

London Marathon Training - 8 weeks to go! 

Key -Both -Blue Kelly -Purple John - Orange 

After 10 weeks of training, we were both looking forward to a recovery week with reduced mileage. We planned to front load the week as we had our last cross country race of the season on Saturday - the Nationals! 

Monday 19th February 2018 

After a full on long run yesterday, I was feeling very stiff and achy this morning. I was sure that a 6 mile run and an hours PT session would help!!! 

This is how this week's PT looked - 

Squats plus floor work.

Squats plus lunges with 3kg Medicine ball rotations

Squat with 30 kg x20 followed by elbow to knee crunches x20              x3 sets 

Squat with 40kg x15  followed by down n ups x 10                         X3 sets   

Cable rotations plus seated Medicine ball balance throws As

Squat with 50 kg x10 followed by lunge patterns x10

Glute raises then press ups                    X10.          X3 sets 

30 kg squats......5-10-15-20

Mat work

A positive and strong workout at the start of the week. Consistent week-on-week strength training is essential (for me anyway) 1-to stay and get stronger 2-to prevent injury. No we have a few weeks in a row under our belts it's taking us less time to recover from PT on a Monday - win-win!

Tuesday 20th February 2018 

Still feeling the effects of the last few days meant that I wanted to take today's GA run at the slower end of GA. I'd rather have done this run in the evening but with parent's evening after school, I knew it was best to get it done first thing. This meant another early start - 5:26am. 

John was being his usual speedy self but I decided not to kill myself trying to keep up with him! Happy with a steady 7:57mm average pace for 10 miles with a couple of quicker miles in the middle. 

10 miles @ 7:26MM felt pretty straight forward and luckily after some 10+ weeks of training, no fear of killing oneself! ;-P Good to be able to run long so soon after PT now - body starting to adapt to the additional training.

Wednesday 21st February 2018 

As John was racing Weston Prom on Thursday, he wanted to run early again to give himself more time to recover. I chose to run early as well - better to have some company than run by myself in the evening. 

Out of the door at 5:45am for what looked on paper like one of the hardest sessions on the P and D plan. 9 miles with 6x 800m efforts at 5k pace. Now my 5k pace is probably around 6mm so I thought I'd try and aim for that. I wasn't convinced that I'd be able to do this session properly with how I was feeling the day before...time to dig deep! 

I did a couple of miles to warm up and surprisingly, my legs felt pretty good. I had planned to help myself out a bit by choosing the flatter/downhill sections to do my efforts on. 

Effort 1- initial thoughts - ouch! This is hard. I managed 6:16mm - 800m. It did go pretty quickly though. I only had 5 left and wanted to get closer to 6mm for the next one. 

Effort 2- better! 5:54mm. I played some mind games with myself on this one which helped. I used the lampposts as markers to run to. 

Effort 3 - 5:59mm. I was finding that my legs were recognising the rhythm of 6mm pace and getting into it much easier. Mentally, I was feeling good - half way there - 'you've got this!' 

Effort 4 - 5:57mm Not much longer left. Gritting teeth time!

Effort 5 - 6:03mm still managing to hold the pace - just! 

Effort 6 - Last one woohooo 5:37! I was clearly very excited that I was nearly done! 

Proper chuffed with that session. I'm not normally very good at those V02 Max workouts but I hit my targets with that. ... I wonder how many days it will take me to recover now! 

3 early mornings have started to take their toll on me. Reverting back to a Gollum-like-state... 

13 miles in <8mm pace not as straight forward as yesterday mornings run and I'm unable to provide the stunning workout the GFRG was capable of - amazing what one can do when the book say so!

Thursday 22nd February 2018 

7 miles recovery on the plan...John recommended that I just to do 5 ...I decided to listen to him for once. Headed out at 6:11am (another parents evening tonight so had to get the run done - another early start!). 

John was racing in the evening so I was running alone. As soon as I started moving, I knew it was going to be a slow one. Yesterday's session had taken its toll and EVERYTHING hurt! 

I managed just over 4 miles at 9:26mm pace before I decided to call it a day. Ouch. 

Weston Prom (5miles) for me - 7th in 28:03! Perfect conditions meant for some very good  racing - but - the long runs over the past few weeks and the early mornings decided to punish me with about 400 mtrs to go... I was among a very strong pack of 5+ runners running well, taking my turn at the front of the group and looking to time my dash for the finish perfect, but... everyone else found a late sprint finish and I seemed to find the beach side quicksand! I threw away at least 4 positions and a Sub28! Not happy short term but in terms of marathon training and London - this was a good block of 5miles at LT! 

Friday 23rd February 2018 

Just a gentle 3 miles today before nationals tomorrow. Thankfully my legs were feeling a bit better than yesterday - although I did have lots of little niggles. 

Same for me - glad for a steady half hour round the harbourside instead of the usual 10. Feeling a lot fresher after such a short time on feet.

Saturday 24th February 2018 

Nationals today wooohooo!!! We were up early again to catch the coach to the Nationals Cross Country Championship at Parliament Hill in London. The journey was very straight forward and very little traffic meant that we arrived with plenty of time to spare. 

We walked the course and watched some of the junior races. Although the course was technically 'dry' as it hadn't rained for a while, when thousands of people run over the same stretch of ground repeatedly in the space of 5 hours, they are bound to create a bit of a mud bath! There were quite a lot of boggy sections - but also a fair amount of sections of the course that looked in good condition. 

My aim was to improve on my 149th position from last year and hopefully sneak into the top 100. 

I wanted to get a good start and see if I could feature in one of the 'mass start' photos that would, no doubt, feature in Athletics Weekly next weekend! 

After a mile warm up, the GWR girls and I headed to our pen which was on the right hand side of the middle - perfect as the first turn was a right hand bend. We were in the same pen as the Avon Valley crew and it was nice to catch up with new friend/rival Beth. I couldn't possibly forget her name as there is a member of her team who yells her name at the top of his voice! We wished each good luck and then took to our marks. 

Then gun went off and I was ready. I stormed off and headed uphill. It didn't take long before what seemed like hundreds of women were passing me! As the course narrowed, everyone got closer and it was pretty chaotic! So many people - with a lot of sharp elbows! 

We reached the downhill section and I relaxed a little and did a bit of overtaking. At the bottom of the hill was the muddiest section of the course. I decided to keep right to avoid the worst of the mud...this did mean that I dropped back a little...mental note to keep left next lap. 

Then we went uphill again and again I lost more positions - why can't I run uphill?! On every downhill, I picked up the pace and tried to over take as many people as possible. It didn't take long before I heard that familiar "Go Beth!" Despite Beth being from a different club, it felt good to have a friendly face nearby when there were so many people I didn't know. The next section of the course was a bit better and I started to relax and enjoy myself. I was annoyed that I wasn't as far up the field as I would have liked, but I reminded myself that cross country wasn't my 'a' goal. I'd not doing any specific cross country training so I could expect to much! 

After finishing the medium lap, we reached the boggy section again, keeping left this time, I found I kept a better line and actually didn't slip too much. Thankfully, I had done my shoes up tightly so they managed to stay on ....lots of people's didn't! Beth and I were taking it in turns to over take each other and I used her as a focal point which really helped. 

The GWR boys were out in force, for the first part of the race, cheering us on - waving their flags and pompoms! Annoyingly, the boys race was very close to the girls so they couldn't watch the whole race as they had to get ready for theirs. 

With 2 miles to go, I heard another familiar voice - Sarah from Bristol and West had caught up with me. Again, it was nice to see someone I knew and I managed to stick near her and Beth for the last couple of miles. The course continued to undulate so they passed me on the uphills and I then returned the favor on the downhill sections. The number of spectators got less and less as the men all went to get ready for their race. We had 1 mile left and I'd had enough! Luckily, I heard John's voice which spurred me on. The downhill finish was great and I was really looking forward to crossing the line. As I did, I saw John on the other side of the barrier - :) 

I kind of gave up in the finishing stretch - I guess knowing that I was quite far back in the field...Sarah and Beth both finished ahead of me- they finished strongly. I feel like I didn't achieved what I could have but I enjoyed the course (despite it being very tough) and I enjoyed the day out. I finished in 191st place. 

When I'd finished, I didn't have time to relax. I had to sprint over to the other side of the field to watch the boys start! All the GWR boys were great - especially John ...but I'll let him tell you about his race. 

Cross Country is hard. Cross Country Nationals at Parliament Hill is hell! The course is relentless, hilly, muddy and too long... 12Kms of questioning why we run. 693rd place for me - an improvement of 669 places and 7 minutes faster than last time round in 2015. Although a tough reminder of why it's important to cross train and bank some weekly hilly/muddy runs, there are also positives: 1500+ fit and healthy fast women running full pelt uphill together with an iconic back drop of London town in the background with my favourite woman very near the front of it all :-) Good to bank the experience and I'd still go back again...

Sunday 25th February 2018 

After cross country yesterday, I was NOT looking forward to the planned 16 mile run today. Nevertheless, we were up and out of the door at 8am and on our way to meet Marcus and Rob. I didn't think I'd be able to keep up with the pace after yesterday but I surprised myself! Chatting away to the boys definitely helped and I managed 16 miles at an average pace of 7:44mm. Really quite pleased with that. 

No lie in for us! 16 miles 7:20MM - 16 miles was more than enough after XC racing yesterday. 2 hours on feet banked and we were blessed with really nice weather. GFRG, Maestro, Rob and I chatting and enjoying our usual loop.

Total mileage for the week:

Kelly - 55.4 

John - 68