Feeling a little jealous this week as you have two of my favourite sessions. I love 400s and 200s. And the 3 x 5km is a great session as marathon pace should feel relatively comfortable at this stage of the plan for 15km. You could even consider doing that with parkrun, so the final 5k would be parkrun itself. But it’s not essential. Another strong week though with the highest pts target so far on the plan. Happy New Year James, keep up the great work.

135 Points Achieved

Very pleased with another good week. All workouts completed & felt strong throughout.
Enjoyed the shorter but quicker session on Sunday & now to recover for the harder week ahead.

You’ve nailed everything to date. 5 weeks on the spin at 100%. A delight as a coach to work with. Yes though quicker long run sessions can add some nice variety to the plan and we’ll do more of them as this plan evolves. Great work James.

MONDAY

15pts | James S&C

15 POINTS

Goblet Squat	2 x 12 (8kg)
Plank	2 x 60s
Split Squat	2 x 12 (8kg)*
Glute Bridge	2 x 10
Calf Raises	2 x 15 (8kg)*
Flutter Kicks	2 x 40s
Russian Twist	2 x 45s (5kg)
Shoulder Press	2 x 10 (8kg)
Bent Over Row	2 x 15 (8kg)
Bicep Curls	2 x 15 (8kg)
Tricep Dips Dumbbells	2 x 15 (10kg)
Dumbbell Swings	2 x 15 (10kg)
Farmers Walk	2 x 60s (12kg)
Wall Sits	2 x 60s

A decent workout covering all the fundamental movement patterns & key muscles groups. Let me know if anything feels too easy or too difficult.

15 Points

TR 80%

Tougher workout with the weights etc increasing but manageable & they seem about right now. Enjoyed working a little harder.

Fantastic work James. I’d say never be in hurry to push the weights. One of the team did that recently and picked up a strain. As long at feels like a good workout, you can always make gradual progress.

TUESDAY

28 Points

TR 90%

Really enjoyed the session & felt good throughout. 400m were maybe a little quick as there wasn’t much difference if any between them & the 200m efforts but worked hard for all efforts. Recovery was just enough for the next effort.

Fantastic session, great consistent pace on the 400s. I’m not worried about the 200s being the same pace either, especially as the marathon is your goal. We don’t need that speed on race day, but we might need those fast twitch fibres to wake up late in the marathon and ultimately that’s what we are training here. Well done James. That’s a favourite session of mine.

WEDNESDAY

15 Points

TR 90%

More of a normal spin class rather than a power zone class for a change. Enjoyed the different type of class which had some climbs & high cadence work. Overall output was higher than previous weeks.

Good to mix it up. And as long we’re turning those legs over fast and working hard, you’re going to hit those points target and make progress. Well done James. Also nice to keep warm at this time of year.

thursday

18 Points

TR 90%

Happy new year Simon. Easy new year park run with 30 mins before hand. Nice easy start to the year, felt good easy all the way through. Legs good even after the last 2 days.

Thank you, Happy New Year to you too James. Sounds like a very enjoyable run. Great way to start what will hopefully be a memorable year in terms of your running 💯

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

9 Points

TR 100%

Cold but easy parkrun this week.
Went to a different local Parkrun due to the cold. This one is off road so was across frozen fields. Enjoyed the different route & felt good after my rest day.
I actually quite enjoy running in the cold so suits me at the moment.

Sensible to avoid the icy pavements. Sounds like a good run. As long as it’s not running this time of year can be beautiful to run, especially if the sun is out. As long as we wrap up warm we shouldn’t really get cold.

SUNDAY

50 Points

TR 90%

Enjoyed this run a lot & felt good with the shorter time being out. Had to be careful due to a few places being icy & went out. A little later than I’d like to due to the ice.
Decided to run 3 6km loops which helped with the conditions & had to amend them as I went.
Overall felt very good with each interval with the final one feeling a bit harder but certainly wasn’t pushing it at the end.
All 3 intervals were pretty much exactly the same pace.

Yeah I saw the splits and you smashed it. I really enjoy these type of sessions myself as that pace feels fairly comfortable but you are moving well. The only thing I would say at this juncture is about chasing that PB at Manchester and how determined you are to hit that in April. Because obviously we are a little shy of that pace here. So we can approach it in two different ways. Let the fitness slowly improve and the paces come down with that, or force that PB pace in the marathon sessions. The more we force things, the more risk there is for things to go wrong. It just depends on whether you want to roll the dice on hitting that PB on this attempt. If you keep doing what you are doing I think you’re fitness and times will definitely continue to improve, it’s just a matter how quickly that progress happens. Hope that makes sense? Great work though James and another excellent session completed.

MONDAY

15pts | James S&C

TUESDAY

28pts | 8 x 400s & 200s

WEDNESDAY

15pts | 45 Mins Spin Class

thursday

18pts | 60 Mins Run

FRIDAY

Rest Day

SATURDAY

9pts | Easy parkrun

SUNDAY

50pts | 3 x 5km (M)