4/19/10

Monday's Training - Am: 5*1km with 2mins rec (on the road). Pm: 30 mins easy

Mileage - 15 Miles

This morning was a complete turn around from the last few days. I woke up just before 7am, which is the same time I wake up back in the USA so I think I am back onto my usual routine and over the jet lag. I headed out the door at 8.30am for half a mile so that I could stretch afterwards and then went for a 3 mile warm up. I was going to do the workout on the track but decided to head out onto a 1km road straight by my old school. I thought this would be better as I may get carried away on the track and if I was on the road, I wouldn’t know what pace I would be going. The first rep was in 2.50 and it felt pretty easy. I was running against the wind so I figured that I would get a nice tail wind for reps 2 and 4 but as usual, when I started my next rep, I was running into a stronger headwind! That’s the St Andrew’s Effect that I mentioned in a previous blog and it was staying true for this trip home. I felt really relaxed on all my reps and decided to pick it up just a little bit on the last rep and it didn’t feel too much different so I was happy about this. I was happy to get a little spark back in my legs and feel fine again. I headed back to the house after a 3 mile warm down and then went down to the Castle Sands so that I could take an ice bath in the Rock Pool there. I can’t believe they used to use this as a swimming pool back in the day. It was really cold and almost as soon as I had gotten into the water, it started to snow! It only lasted for a few minutes but it was enough to dampen my thoughts of a warm fire that was keeping me going. The view from the water is fantastic though as on one side you have the ruins of the old cathedral and then on the other side was the ruins of St Andrews castle. I towelled off after 12 minutes and headed back to the house for a warm shower and some food. I spent much of the afternoon just relaxing in front of the TV with my feet up.

The Castle Sands

I went for a second run at 3pm as I was getting a massage at 4pm. I felt good again and was feeling very easy at the pace that I was struggling with yesterday. I headed over to the St Andrews FC grounds for my massage with Jez Tomlinson. He did a great job of getting into my muscles and digging into the knots and tight bits. He did leave the worst for last though as he got stuck into my glutes. They were really tight and needed some work so I was really glad he got in and put me through the pain of deep tissue massage. I headed over to the Castle Sands again and stood in the water for a second ice bath of the day. I actually got a little crowd of Japanese people pointing and staring at me from the cliff top as they pondered what I was doing. The waves were pretty big so I headed over to a different section of the beach where there was an inlet and there were no waves. I finished up just as it started to rain so I scrambled out and try to pull my clothes on. I went back to the house and had a nice hot shower and then re heated some leftover pasta with some garlic bread and salad.