Exciting week with the race to look forward to on Sunday. Tuesdays sessions is a beaut. Tough but rewarding. 1200m reps with the last 200 at quicker pace (a few have got it wrong in the past), so I thought I would clarify. Let’s keep everything rolling along and hopefully Sunday will be a strong race. Any problems let me know.

150 Points Target
157 Points Achieved

Another solid week with 2 sessions with plenty of effort.

Monday was rest day.

Tuesday was a good session with WU and CD. Felt strong all the way through the session even when things got tough towards the end.

Tuesday was also a strength workout. This was a longer session due to tweaking exercises and order of play.

Wednesday was a cold 50 minutes easy.

Thursday was 40 minutes easy at our secret run club with the love birds.

Friday was rest day.

Saturday was an easy park run with some strides.

SUNDAY… well this didn’t go to plan but on reflection plenty to take away. The downhill start and going out hot masked the HR. With going out to fast and not letting my HR come up a little slower I was in a world of trouble after around 2 or 3km. The lower back pain I had from 3km was awful. My hamstrings/glutes stopped firing and was running with my back. My form had gone completely and was in survival mode early. HR stayed consistent throughout and climbed as I pushed towards the end when I actually started to feel okay and the back pain had gone around 9Km. Too late by now.

My WU felt good but with a better race strategy, I believe I am quicker than the time showed. I was however inline with my current targets so all was not lost but better to come.

Another really good week. 157pts banked which is great. As for Sunday. Move on, it’s just one of those things, such an easy mistake to make. If the back continues to give you problems let me know. I have to stretch daily for my back, so might be able to offer some good exercises which could help there. But the most important thing is hitting those training targets and you’ve done that again, so superb work Dan.

MONDAY

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Rest Day

0 POINTS

“Rest days are key. Our body adapts and gets stronger when we rest & recovery. Have a good one!”

0 Points
Work, cooking, dad duties and a little drive to collect my 2nd kettlebell ready to crack on with S&C. Exciting times ahead.
Bring on the kettlebell workouts 💪

TUESDAY

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15pts | Circuits

15 POINTS

Always fun to train in a group. Ask for help if unsure on your technique on the exercises.

41pts | 1km & 200s x 8

41 POINTS

2km WU @ Easy Pace (RPE: 3)

1km @ 10K Pace (RPE: 7)
200 Metres @ 3K Pace (RPE: 8)
90 Second Recovery
x 8

2km CD @ Easy Pace (RPE: 3)

Another TRC inspired running channel which apparently was the reason one of their presenters got their marathon time down from 3:40 to sub 3:00 🤔 Hopefully it has the same effect for you.

56 Points
Solid day with some good work. The session was another beast and done this round our local lake which is just over a mile loop. 1.5 mile progression WU with strides. The 1k’s I ran at 6:40 pace and then straight into 200m at 6:10 pace. I pushed the pace on the last rep. 1.5 mile cool down when I got home. 50 minute strength exercise done at home in the evening once I got Poppy to sleep. Little longer than planned as I was playing with the exercises and mixing it up a little. I took some exercises from my own S&C and the others you sent me. I will send you the routine I did via What’s App so you can have a look and tell me what you think.
That is a big day! Very very impressive. As you said, that is a big session that one. I think ideally as well, going forward, we’d look to do the S&C the same day as an easy run, as not to overload the body on the same day. But that’s fine, if you found these both manageable it shows how strong you are right now. I’ve tweaked the S&C and we can continue to do that for a while until we get it right for you. But excellent work Dan

WEDNESDAY

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15pts | 50 Mins Run

15 POINTS

It’s important to keep the easy runs easy. Focus on good running form and low heart rate.

15 Points
50 very easy and low heart rate minutes. No planned route just went out the house and ran in the cold all wrapped up. Somehow worked out to be a very easy progression run.
I just said to another runner the importance of being wrapped up in these conditions so glad to hear you say that. Well done for ticking this one off.

thursday

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15pts | Dan S&C

15 POINTS
Glute Bridge 2 x 20
Hamstring Walkouts 10
Split Squat Iso Hold 10*
Leg Swings 10*
Goblet Squat 2×10 (12kg)
Kettlebell Romanian Deadlift 2 x 10 (15.5)
Single Leg Deadlift 2×8 (13 kg)
KettleBell Swings 2×10 (13 kg)
Split Squat 2×8 (13kg)
Kettlebell Bent Over Row 2×8 (13 kg)
Calf Raises 2×10 (13 kg)
Single Leg Calf Raises 2 × 15 *(10.9 kg)
Suitcase Carry 2×30s* (18 kg)
Kettlebell Side Bends 2×10* (18 kg)
Dead Bugs 2 × 10* (5kg)
Russian Twist 2x30s (12kg)
Plank 2x45s
Press Up 2×15

Give this a go and let me know how you get on. Can always tweak it going forward.

12pts | 40 Mins Run

12 POINTS

The biggest mistake we can make with these recovery runs is running too fast. This will mean when our harder sessions come round we are still fatigued and not able to put enough effort in to make the necessary gains.

27 Points
40 chatty easy minutes with Yaxley’s love birds Darren and Lisa. 40 minute strength workout. Felt good. Made a couple of tweaks. Moved a couple of exercises around so I am not changing the kettlebells weights too often. Moved the goblet squats to my warm with a lighter weight to prime me. Didn’t also want to burn out my quads too much with having split squats and wall sits in the program. Added back in 2 exercises. Double kettlebell RDL as I get a really good hamstring stretch with this. It feels good and my hamstrings could do with the extra work. Added back in the kettlebell side bend, again this feels good and it adds in some weight for my core, good for hip stability and pair well with suitcase carry. I also changed some of the weights. I will send you what I did via WhatsApp.
Great work Dan, and this is where the feedback is so important. You can feel the difference the exercises make and the weights needed more than I can, but the most important thing is we cover all bases which I think this workout does now. So I’m happy. I’ll get it updated on the system.

FRIDAY

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Rest Day

0 POINTS

“Rest days are key. Our body adapts and gets stronger when we rest & recovery. Have a good one!”

0 Points
Nice rest day. 7-11 at work, fry up for lunch then an afternoon on the Mini doing a rocker gasket change, tidying up the garage, then tea plus dad duties. Early night tonight to get that training readiness up.
Sounds like a decent day!! Liking those work hours 😉

SATURDAY

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9pts | Easy parkrun

9 POINTS

“Easy means Easy! Not 5k pace, not 10k pace, not even marathon pace. Easy pace!! 😉”

Save those legs for the bigger sessions and enjoy running comfortably among the pack.

Thank you.

14 Points
Very easy warm up. Easy chatty Park run. 5x 15s strides to turn the legs over ready for tomorrow.
Nice. For what’s it worth if you do have easy parkrun a warm up isn’t always needed as you can use the first mile if you wanted. So some bonus pts there. Sounds like a good morning though.

SUNDAY

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45pts | 10K Race

45 POINTS

2km WU @ Easy Pace (RPE: 2)
8 x 100 metres Strides (RPE: 9)

10km @ 10km Pace (RPE: 6-8)

2km CD @ Easy Pace (RPE: 3)

Control what you can. The warm up, strides, getting the early pace right and staying positive when it gets tough. You got this!! If it’s a hilly route do your research.

45 Points
Progression WU and strides. Race was a disappointment. Should have ran my own race and not run the pacers race. Went out with the sub 40 pacers and was perhaps a little too fast currently for me. I knew after around 3K I had gone out to fast. Was not really in control and was hanging on early. After 5K mentally I was done and pace dropped. Picked it up a little towards the end to finish with an average pace that nearly mirrors my plan pace, so all is not bad. If I’d have started slower and more controlled perhaps would have been a little quicker. Easy CD to finish.
Lots of positives here. The WU/CD, the effort level. So you’ll have made some decent gains. Then just the one mistake and probably the most common error among. We’ve all done it, loads of times, and it’s easily done, especially when there are pacers there. Looking at the splits, they went off too fast as well. I think had they gone off at 3:59 per km, you’d have been able to hang in there better, but they certainly didn’t help your cause. The biggest lesson to take away is just having that understanding of where the fitness is right now and trusting that pace. The difference between starting a race like this at 3:50 per km compared to 4:08 is huge. But that’s fine, we move on, learn from the mistake and go again. Still a strong time.