Sunday Monday

Sunday’s Training – Am: 60 mins recovery

Weekly Mileage Total – 146 miles

Today was a complete recovery day. I woke up 7.30am and sat down for a coffee, toast and crossword before I got ready for my run. It was pretty cool outside but I still just wore a vest as I knew it would be the last time in a long while to wear as little clothing as this. I actually had to take it off after a mile because I was getting some nipple rub. It felt good just to go really easy on the run. I can really feel myself recovering on these runs as I’m going slow enough for it to take hardly any energy. I finished up the run and again had to get ready fairly quickly as Julie and I had to get on the road back up to Flagstaff as we had a class to take at 1pm. As we left Phoenix it started to pour with rain and the higher we climbed into the mountains, the cold and snowier it got. We were met back in Flagstaff with horizontal snow coming down (or should I say across). The rest of the day was pretty lazy and with both my achilles tendons feeling a little tight and with my mileage been high enough for the week, I took the evening off and started getting some chicken, sweet corn and ginger soup ready for the two of us. We also polished off a whole loaf of sheephearder bread as we settled down on the coach to watch Up In The Air.

Recovery Days – For me, I usually always take Sunday as a real recovery day. I run really slowly and try to use as little energy as possible. It usually doesn’t matter how much running is involved on that day whether its 30 mins easy or two runs of 60 mins, I intend to fully recover from the previous days workout. These are more prevelant in the track season when the hard days are really hard and the easy days are really easy. There is a difference between recovery days and easy days also. I usually just have one recovery day and either three or four easy days. The easy days are usually run between 6 min and 7 min mile pace and are meant to be more about aerobic development than anything else. Recovery days are about letting my muscles recover and get ready for the next weeks training.

Monday’s Training – Am: 90 mins easy, Pm: 60 mins easy

Mileage: 23 miles

Today started off with me dropping off my car at the shop to get some body work repaired (I skidded into a snow bank last month when I was going 20 mph in a straight line and the wheels just lost traction on the ice). The mechanic’s was a little out of the way so I left the car there and ran from there over to the indoor dome where the rest of the crew were doing workouts. I was actually going to do my run outside but after nearly getting hit by a car 15 mins into the run and soaking my feet (I had to jump out of the way of a car skidding off the road and landed in a snow hidden puddle) I decided to stay a little warmer by doing the rest of the run on the indoor track. This was a little mind numbing as it meant I ran with the guys for the warm up and then spent the rest of the 90 mins running around a 300m track.

After this, Martin dropped me off at the Summit Center where Julie works so I could pick her car up as I needed to head to work later on. I got home, had a good breakfast and took an hour nap. I woke up feeling refreshed, had a coffee and headed out for my second run at 2pm as I had to get to work for 4pm. I felt great on the second run and got up to a good pace. It looked like I timed it just right as when I was running down the hill for the last mile of the run I could see the snow clouds closing in.

I got to work only to be met by an empty restaurant and plenty of snow coming down outside. I stayed at work until 7pm and was then let off as there were no customers and they could handle the rest of the night without me. This was great as I got home just as Julie was heading to the mini gym that our apartment complex has so I got changed and joined her in there to get some stretching and foam rolling done. My achilles were still feeling a little funny today so it was great to work on my legs and loosen off my calves to help ease my achilles.