Like Ice in the Sun

I've not been terribly good at writing on my blog of late. I blame Christmas preparations which I've dived into wholeheartedly. I am now at the end of the third week of my training plan and so far it's going ok.

So what have I been up to? Well December has been both bitter and mild in turn, prompting me to break out the merino and thermal leggings, my new rain jacket and the sunglasses. Kit is definitely not a barrier to my getting out of the door to go for a run, I'm set for all weathers and seasons. It was pretty during the heavy frost last week, seeing the spider webs on the street lamps. Things like that reawaken my enjoyment of running. I was knocked out by a cold this week for a grand total of 2 days but thankfully my immune system was quick to work and a 6 mile run sweated the last of it out.

I'm running three times a week and starting to introduce "Tuff" training, as I'm calling it, which is strength training in any guise I can manage. So far that's in the form of one of Davina's DVDs, doing the boot camp, arms and core sections. It feels good to feel that ache in my muscles again and I'm sure I can already see a difference in my arms.

My three runs consist of an interval, a tempo and a long run. The intervals are kinda fun, but I think I need to push just a teeny bit harder and jog all of the recovery sections rather than walk some of them. The tempo runs are pretty standard. It seems, according to the pacing, that these are my usual, comfortable sorts of runs. That's not to say they're easy but just the sort I was doing most often prior to this plan. The long runs are a challenge though. I know I'm capable of the 8 or 9 miles that's been asked of me so far but I'm finding them so awfully BORING! I finished one a whole mile short the other day just because I was so bored of it. I had a new soundtrack to listen to but I was fed up of running the same roads. I can run these longer runs at the weekend during the day in the few light hours we get at the moment so I need to plan a bit more and take advantage of being able to go offroad. The shorter runs I have to do at night, mostly, so need to stick to the roads and therefore end up on the SAME roads time after time. It's taken me a while to realise that I need to go back to the running club and start running with people again. My fear of having to run faster than I am comfortably capable of and needing a break from the routine has prevented me so far but the new year will see me going back to being sociable with my running and being brave.

So, to date, my training has looked like this:
Week 1: 17.5 miles
Week 2: 18.5 miles plus 1 x Tuff
Week 3: 13.5 miles plus 3 x Tuff (and my 50th parkrun!)

Weeks 3 and 4 are a bit easier due to Christmas, with one week's worth stretched out over 2. I do have the ten mile cross country Gut Buster race to look forward to on December 30th though! That should get rid of the festive excesses...