Monday - usual rest day, felt okay after the 20mile race the day before though!
Tuesday - a steady 1.95k swim of various drills and floating, although I wasn't really aching there was a definite tiredness in the body!
Wednesday - a nice steady 3 mile run at lunch to break the legs back in - they felt tight but fine, no real niggles and was okay, the did an hours (2.5k) coached swim session in the evening which went well - not a fan of swimming in the evening as I tend to get cramp in my feet!
Thursday - no swim in the morning as had an early start at work, in the evening it was a run - 5.76 miles in 48.36 which was more than pleasing as I felt pretty strong on stiff legs!
Friday - back in the pool for 7*250m, mostly with the pull buoy, which was fine
Saturday - was supposed to be 4 hours on the bike and we were lucky to have some lovely sunshine so it was no overshoes, no gloves and no extra jacket which was sooooo nice! It made such a difference to be warm and out enjoying the sunshine! We kept it mostly flat/rolling and enjoyed some new roads which made a nice change! We did 46 miles in 2.5 hours with an average of 18 mph which was a good ride with some really top quality intervals in the middle hitting it pretty hard! I faded towards the end, hence the reduced time out there - I put this down to 3 weeks of no cycling and the intensity of the last two races still residing slightly in my legs!
Sunday - up and about and met with a friend to run the Avon Valley Path from Salisbury to Fordingbridge which should have been about 15 miles! The weather was not great to begin with so I kept my blue gilet on but as we set off the sun broke out so it was boil in a bag time for a little while! I had underestimated some of the terrain and it was tough going - the overnight rain making the trail pretty slippery in places - it was great to do new paths and trails though taking me through places I didn't know existed! The friend I was with is just getting in to the longer stuff and did brilliantly, turning off at 10 miles to head home, we did get lost as I took us down the wrong path but we made our way over some hills on the road to come out at the right place - in hindsight it would have been a lot easier not to have gone wrong as the correct path sticks to the nice and flat valley floor! We did walk the hills though as they were very steep!
From there I expected a steady downhill to Hale park - how wrong I was and two nasty steep valleys had to be negotiated first, which required walking to get out the otherside - I was tiring pretty quickly by now and the hills had taken their toll despite the bigger ones being walked - a long but steep downhill allowed me to drop the average pace a bit which was good, and then a mile or so of road section kept it steady - the final hill was again walked and going through 13.1 miles in 2.12 tells its own story! From here it was a drop down to a farm and through some more meadows into Fordingbridge - I was running late for lunch so had the otherhalf pick me up about a mile or so short of the finishline as she was on her way through! I was very tired by this point and although I was still running quite well, this was the hardest run I have ever done - I should have taken on more than the one gel that I used which would have perked up the last few miles I am sure! so it was 14.38 miles in 2.23 hours which was exactly 10 min/miles - not what I would usually expect but it was fine! I really enjoy this kind of running and although slower it is much more fun than tarmac pounding! Looking forward to doing it all again with some more food and not getting lost!
Anyway finished the week with 9.5 hours training, not a large amount but I think the sessions were all beneficial - the only downside being that I now have a very sore achilles tendon on my left foot - after the run I showered and then drove off down to lunch in a full car so legs were quite cramped - think the clutch movement just twinged it a bit - rest and ice for this! Not ideal as I wanted to ramp up the training this week - swimming should be fine and hopefully cycling so I will just take this week off running - hopefully all okay for the weekend though!
See you then!
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