11th January 2020
I’m afraid I missed a midweek update this week, I’m struggling to return to routine following the holidays and my training feels a little disorganised accordingly. I think I’m getting the same effort in but I’m just not hitting the same routine.
For Wednesday I didn’t manage a run but I did go for a nice hike, not as strenuous as last week it was still a good stretch. I wouldn’t previously have included these walks but the training plan highlights walking as part of the training suite so I might as well cover them here. Even going through familiar areas when you walk you see things you would otherwise miss and it is a very different way to experience the environment.
Distance covered 7km
On Thursday I took in a 45-minute spin class with my regular instructor, who continues to ignore my favourite tracks and insists on following a very forgettable playlist. It was a good session though and I got my heart rate up and put in a real effort. I spent some time on the gym floor doing resistance work before running home. I had very heavy legs after the spin session, but I don’t mind that. I am inured to running being hard work so these post gym session runs are becoming more and more familiar.
Distance covered 5km
Saturday was a return to school rugby and another away match afforded me the opportunity to try a new parkrun. My son’s commute to school is quite quick on the train but is actually a dozen miles or so from our home on the outskirts of London. This means that many of his away matches are actually closer to our house than his school and this was one of those occasions. There were no dramas this time and an early kick-off meant the 8:30 drop off in the school carpark wasn’t as unwelcome as usual. I got to the parkrun location in good time, which was good as there was a 1km walk to the start line from the car park. Reading the course description I packed my trail shows and even though we’d had a few dry days these were a good choice. I’m probably going to get a bit repetitive when I talk about parkrun but again the new route made such a refreshing change. This was very much a cross country route with the first couple of km across rough fields where great care had to be taken when planting your feet and the soft ground was energy sapping, the middle 2km was along hilly trails before returning to the meadow for the finish. Very different to other parkruns I’ve done it was a really enjoyable challenge, adding the trot between the start/finish and the car park along a muddy bridleway it made for an excellent training run. I was late to the match inevitably which meant I missed my son’s opening try but I saw most of the game and they won comfortably which, I think, leaves them unbeaten for the season with just two fixtures left
Distance covered 7km
| Day | VLM Training Plan | What I did |
| Sunday | REST DAY – The first few weeks are important. Find the time to fit in your workouts | Rest day with Spin Class |
| Monday | RUN/WALK 40 MINUTES – (10 minute walk, 10 minute run) x 2 | Run 120 minutes (18km) incl 20 minutes walking. Yoga |
| Tuesday | REST DAY | Rest day with swimming |
| Wednesday | RUN/WALK 50 MINUTES – 10-minute brisk walk, 30-minute easy run, 10-minute brisk walk | 90 minute walk |
| Thursday | REST DAY | Spin class and 30 minute run |
| Friday | REST DAY | Rest day |
| Saturday | RUN/WALK 65 MINUTES – 10-minute walk, 20-minute easy run, 10-minute walk, 15-minute easy run, 10-minute walk | 30 minute run at pace, 2 x 7 minute easy run |
Weekly Training Summary
2 Spin classes
1 Yoga class
1 Swim session (total distance 1.0km)
3 Runs (total distance 30km)
Current weight 13”0’
