I've been holding myself down from running still (mostly). I just want to let the heels and achilles have as much time as possible to settle down. I've also decided not to run at Ennerdale on 6th June - there just isn't enough time to prepare properly and I don't want to put myself through it if I'm not going to enjoy it!
On Wednesday I had to go to the mid-Wales coast for a meeting, and found myself in Borth with an hour or so to spare before the return train. Strangely I seemed to have a T shirt and a pair of shorts with me (fell shoes too to be truthful, but I didn't use them). I thought the best use of the time would be to work on my running form a bit, so I got out on the beach, barefoot, and ran very steadly for 20 minutes on the surf line. I was concentrating on some of the pointers in the Chi Running book, and really enjoyed it. I then had a quick swim and stood calf deep in the sea for five minutes to cool down before a very pleasant train journey back.
Yesterday night was gym night again, and I was well up for it! 5,000m in just over 20 minutes on the rowing machine at moderate to high resistance made for a good warm up, then I got on the bike pretty much straight away. I was aiming to get a really good CV conditioning session in with some intensity so I set the resistance to a medium level where I can hang in at around 75% of my MHR, and just turned over at a nice constant RPM for 20 minutes. I find it's better to spin fairly quickly (90 to 100 RPM) at a slightly lower resistance than turn a huge gear relatively slowlty (that hurts my knees after a while). I covered 10km in just over 20 minutes and then eased off to cool down for a couple of minutes. My final exercise again followed straight on - getting on the stepper with a tune with a good beat on repeat on the iPhone, and just monstering away on again a medium resistance. This gets me up into a higher HR zone when I work hard (like a race pace run or climb), and I can ease off a bit to recover, dropping back into the aerobic zone. I held the hard sessions for 4 minutes or so, easing off for a minute to recover. When I got off and finished (after a five minute cool down) I had that brilliant skin tingly sensation you get after a good session or a hard race.
Tonight I'm going to take a rest, and tomorrow I'm going to start getting back into the long runs - I think no more than 12 to 15 miles this week.
I've thought over the Caradoc race too, and in hindsight I'm more positive about it now. I shouldn't really have run, and if I'd done the Streak I probably wouldn't have, but I wanted to get a score down for the Summer Series (this gives me the option of missing one of the remaining four races). I did very well to the top and had a good descent except for hurting my feet again, and I know there's lots more potential there. I should be able to get up to about 80% score in at least one of these summer races - with the long run out Caradoc doesn't suit me as well as say Stiperstones or Pontesford, and the extra distance and steep second climb at Ragleth will help me too. I know now that I'm physically capable of pulling the odd really good run out (Clee, LMV) and Caradoc as far as the lane was of that kind of quality this year... In the end it's pretty daft beating myself up about a performance when I went nearly four minutes faster than last year (I took almost exactly 10% off my time). Caradoc was my best summer series race last year too. So I should be being chuffed.
Track of the week: "There's No Other Way", Blur. London goes to Madchester, Baggy heaven. And unbelievably good for getting you dancing on the stepper!
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