Last few days

I've just had three of my toughest days training in the last few months (probably since last year). I was on a training course for the first two days of the week, which meant I was home early enough. On Monday, I was busy in the evening, so I done a 7.26km run in 42.37mins (5.52 min / km) where I started off way too fast and had two stop twice. Still happy enough with it, as it's always good (for me) to do a sub 6 min pace run.

On Tuesday, I'd a totally free evening and the plan was to get a brick (bike followed by a run) session in. As Gael Force is a run followed by a cycle, it made more sense to do that here as well. My initial plan was to do 1hr of each discipline, but decided a while into the run to push it out to 90 mins (mainly thinking of the 2.5hr runs that are coming up in the next few weeks). I was planning on sticking with a 7 min per km pace (as recommended by Jack Daniels based on my last 5km race time) but seemed to settle in a more "natural" 6min 30s pace. This is something I definitely need to work on. Done 14.31km in 1hr 33m 24s (6.32 min / km) with an average HR of 166bpm.

After stopping for a drink and a quick nibble on a cereal bar I was off on the bike part of the brick. For the first few km's, it was touch and go whether or not my calves (both legs) were going to cramp. I decided to push on for another few km and thankfully it seemed to settle down, with a few minor twinges for the rest of the ride. It was a bit of a struggle over all, but managed to do 36.71km in 1hr 27m 17s (average HR 149bpm). Was absolutely wrecked afterwards though.

After yesterday days exertions, despite my tiredness and a stiff tendon \ ligament on the sole of my right foot, I'd previously committed to a regular bike ride with a friend here in Cambridge who's also signed up for Gael Force in August. The idea was to start pushing the distances on the bike out a bit and the aim was to get 50km in tonight. The weather's been pretty poor here today, with some heavy showers during the day, but we decided to brave the elements anyways - weather in Mayo is notoriously unpredictable, even in August, so there was no guarantee the weather at Gael Force would be any better.

We kept a pretty steady pace throughout, which suited me fine after yesterdays exertions. Got absolutely drenched a few km's in, but all in all (despite wet and cold feet) it was a pretty enjoyable cycle. We done a total of 58.72km (+ an extra 4.8km for me to get to the start) in 2hrs 11m 41s, an average pace of 26.8kmph - not too bad for a relatively easy cycle. Average HR was 146bpm.

I'd throw up some maps, only this post is long enough as it is. The links above are to the MotionBased details of the activities.