6M double; recovery run & short tempo
3M am steady run at ~6.15min/M
3M pm tempo
So I've been busy entering fatherhood. Hana is her name.
A new era of my life and one that has unsurprisingly meant I have had less time and emotional energy for running. Both are needed in abundance for fast marathon running, particularly if you are a determination and dedication led athlete like me. And so I decided a few weeks ago not to run the London Marathon.
I am loving the new state of affairs. It has been a magical six weeks and time at home has been precious. In the two weeks of paternity leave, I ran twice: once to John Lewis to buy some baby grows and once to register her birth. Since I've been back at work (nearly four weeks now) I have been running the direct, three mile, route to and from the hospital each day. Three miles steadily in the morning and three miles hard in the evening. It means I maximise my time at home (running is definitely faster than public transport) while getting in 30 miles a week with about 15 miles of hard running in 3 mile bouts on five consecutive days. I haven't been running at the weekends.
It's not a regime I've read about before, but the evening runs are short enough that I'm fresh by the next evening, so for now I'll stick with it. Initially they were just hard, tempo efforts like today's. But now I've started alternating tempo days with intervals - 800m to 1K reps off a minute jog so far.
I'm racing the National 12 Stage Road Relay on Saturday. So we will see where I am fitness-wise. I was at my fittest and fastest ever on February 27th, the day before Hana's arrival. We will see where the ensuing six weeks have left me.
I am still really enjoying my running. And I still relish the pain and afterglow of my sessions. It'll just take time to know when my new priorities might allow me to commit all to another marathon. I wouldn't want to go in half-prepared or half-hearted.
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