Another steady week of training. Did my regular 2 x circuit sessions in a 10kg weight vest and as a first completed an hour’s tempo run on the treadmill – 4 minutes at 11.1 kph and a minute at 14.5 kph repeated 12 times. I usually find it difficult to stay on the treadmill that long without a short break on another piece of equipment as I get bored with nothing new to look at, but I plugged in the headphones and got through in one go. Have also given in to the foam roller to ease of the hamstring, despite the fact that it brings tears to my eyes.
Woke up today to grey skies and heavy drizzle. Grabbed my waterproof (make that splashproof) jacket and gloves and ran to Greenwich Park for the weekly hill training session. The idea is to get as much hill training in as I can. While Greenwich Park can provide the hills to train for Marathon des Sables, the weather was no match and I ended up soggy head to toe.
Spent 40 minutes running up and down 12 hills – a.k.a “Kenyan Hill Training.” A tough session, particularly in the mud. By hill number 6 I could feel my right hamstring going a bit awry, so continued by doing one loop instead of the usual two per hill to avoid aggravating it.
After the session went to the tearooms at the top of the park and caught up with my fellow runner, Jens, who had just completed his own ultra race – 180 miles along South Africa’s Wild Coast. Well done, Jens!
Sadly, the rest of the day was not so energetic, more domestic with cleaning and food shopping but planning to go for a long run tomorrow. My last big multiday ultra before MdS is only a couple of weeks away and then it’s the home stretch before Marathon des Sables. I can feel a few nerves (rather like exam nerves) setting in as it will be a step into the unknown, but I’m looking forward to it in equal measure. Just need to complete the next three and a bit weeks of final training and preparation.