Week 6 summary

Mon – Rest
Tue – Rest
Wed – 4 miles easy (7:16m/m)
Thu –  6 miles general aerobic (6:39m/m)
Fri – 13 miles medium long (7:07m/m)
Sat – 4.5 miles recovery (7:42 m/m)
Sun – Bath Half Marathon (5:53m/m)

Total – 41 miles

Definitely a week of two halves, injury and two days rest at the beginning, and a solid half marathon at the end!

I woke up on Monday with a very stiff leg, the result of a 24 mile run with a mild hamstring strain. I was anticipating a day of rest anyway, so wasn’t too worried and did some stretching and icing to help it recover. Tuesday saw a slight improvement, but still pretty stiff so I took that as a rest day as well.

On Wednesday things were feeling a lot better so went for a short 4 mile run, confirming I was back in shape. Thursday saw a nice mid pace 6 mile run to get the legs moving again, and Friday was a fast-ish medium long run of 13 miles. Overall, a couple of days rest at the start of the week were probably a good thing (even though they were enforced due to injury).

Saturday was a short jog round Elthorne Park with Matt (who has his own injury problems to contend with), leaving plenty of energy for…

The Bath Half Marathon

This was a really important race for me, as it would be the best indicator of how effective my marathon training has been.

At the Cardiff half in October I faded quite badly in the last 3 miles, probably due to an overly fast start and an unexpected hill at mile 10. I wanted to learn from those mistakes and put in a better performance at Bath.

I went into the race with a plan not to go off too fast and keep the pacing even for as long as possible. I stuck to that very well, with just a couple of slower splits (by 5 seconds or so) coinciding with undulations on the two lap course.

This plan paid off in spades in the last 3 miles, I felt very strong and picked up the pace significantly, dropping quite a few other runners. I also put in a good sprint to the finish, determined to duck under 78 minutes as the clock ticked down on the gantry.

Chip time 77:53, a PB by 2 minutes. I also placed 95th, not bad for me 🙂

Splits – 5:50, 5:54, 5:54, 5:53, 5:54, 5:52, 5:57, 6:00, 5:54, 5:58, 5:49, 5:45, 5:51, 1:14.

Tags: bath half marathon, vlm, vlm2012