Monday 4 April 2016

Phase 1 Complete!

Without particularly aiming for it, I hit 315km in March - my 3rd highest mileage month ever!  The only two months I've topped that were in 2006, both during a successful sub 2:55 marathon campaign.  A whole year before I ever dreamt of an 800m race.


It's not something that was on the plan, it's not something I particularly needed to do, it just seemed to happen.


The key enabler has been the vastly improved recoveries.  There's nothing like doing a 10 or 11 mile run, and not feeling any fatigue the next day.  Even stringing 2 or 3 long runs together, day after day, doesn't seem to have had any impact.  And I've just enjoyed being out doors!


The improved recoveries are down to two factors:
  1. The main factor is that the gait change, landing under the hips, causes less shock, and therefore less damage.  The resulting strengthened feet further improve shock absorption, this has left my legs, hips, core with less fatigue after every run.
  2. The changed fuelling - metabolising fat rather than glycogen means that I'm not running low on any fuel type, and means not having to work so hard to refuel between runs.  Better quality food, in a nutshell.
This means that, according to the plan, I am officially finished with phase 1 - the building of the miles, steady pace, good gait.  Once again, here's the graph, with some more notes.  I'm officially at the "6 Months" mark:


Time to move on up the pace chart.  This week: 4:15/km pace.  I shall go to the track on Tuesday, but will time efforts to hit 4:15 and no faster.  I shall test later in the week with a 5k training run at 4:15 - make sure I can maintain strong hips for that distance at that pace.


The other runs I will keep to an off-road surface.  I don't want to get so hung up on hitting an exact pace, that I have to train on flat pavement the whole time!


More soon...




1 comment:

  1. All sounding great. I think you're well on target. Feeling like you have been for a swim after a run is just the way it should be - you've held good form and used a balance of muscles across the body - big smiles here.

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