You’re going to hate this week, because of the light load. But if you hold back over the next 10 days or so you are going to feel amazing come Paddock Wood. And that’s the idea now. We’ve banked a lot of really hard work, you’re running well, now is the time to cash the rewards, but we need to ensure we can do that my easing back a little before the big day. If you really need to do more, get yourself on the bike in the gym, cos 60 mins on the bike at a low HR (not spin) only adds on 6 points. Any problems let me know. Keep up the great work Lou.

120 Points Achieved

MONDAY

10pts | Body Combat

10 POINTS

30-45 Mins @ Varied RPE

A good mix of cardio and strength work. Can be a fun session! Have a good one 🥊😁

27pts | 15 Mins & 5-4-3-2-1

27 POINTS

Recoveries: 90 seconds all reps

Credit TRC for this one. Imperative to stick to half marathon pace in that first 15 minute tempo. Otherwise you’ll be too fatigued to hit target 5k pace in the shorter reps.

34 Points

Sorry missed warm up because of traffic. But will get it back on the stair climber. It turned into a ramp up. I did 200m in 45 seconds that doesn’t round that quick but I think that is for me. I wasn’t zone 5 I was zone 4! I think garmin is learning I have a high exercise heart rate low resting heart rate.

Fantastic session Lou. As the reps get shorter than pace will always pick up a bit, it’s hard not to finish a session quicker, but that’s why we do it that way. Was really impressed with the effort and form tonight. Only really missing a few pts so not a massive deal and won’t take much to make up for that. In terms of the HR, we’ve not done loads of easy work or long runs, so it might be a bit higher for that reason, but I wouldn’t worry about being in the high zones for that session, ideally that’s what we would want.

TUESDAY

10pts | Gym Legs/Core L1

10 POINTS

A good all round session to work the legs and core. You should have built up to this fairly gradually, so don’t dive in head first as you want to take your time building your strength. Be sensible with the weights to begin with.

If short on time combine 2 exercises together (superset) them to save on the recoveries. Ideally one leg exercises and one core exercise where possible. Eg squats and planks.

12pts | 20 Mins Stair Climber

12 POINTS

A great form of cross trainer for us runners. Take a few minutes to warm up at find your stride but then push hard. You can real bang for your buck with just 20 mins on the stair climber. I hit around level 10 when doing these but find the right speed for you that you can maintain, but you find this tough.

22 Points

I thought i was good then some block got on with a 15kg weight! So my next question is do you think I could sub 24 min? I’ve been doing a lot of reading and it said for 40 year woman and getting to where I did is pretty good. But I know over a short distance I’ve got speed and that gives me confidence that I could get better

Respect for the bloke for doing that. Not seen that at Pure Gym yet. I’ve seen people with kettlebells on the treadmill. I think the questions we want to ask are…..can I get stronger? Can I get more flexible? Can I improve my mental toughness? Can I build my endurance? If the answer to any of those questions is “yes”, then you can keep bringing your 5k time down. I would say there’s probably some room for improvement in all those areas. I know right now that with each passing week my 5k time is getting worse, as I don’t do speed work, but I also know my strength is improving every week, and that’s always been my weakness. So once I get stronger than I’ve ever been, I can then reintroduce the interval work and as I slowly build back up, my times will continue to improve and hopefully (it might not happen) I will be faster than ever before. But even if I never run another 5K PB in my life, I’m going to feel stronger than I ever have done and that improves my well being on a daily basis, so that is far more important than what my watch says when I cross the parkrun finish line. Perhaps a long winded philosophical answer to a very simple question, but an important one all the same I think. PS Well done on the gym work.

WEDNESDAY

24 Points

That didn’t feel easy, although it didn’t feel like a massive effort either 🤣 think I just have a high heart rate

Yeah the dynamics of the group were a bit unfortunate tonight. Hopefully when Jax is back, if we do that run again you’ll be able to run at a much easier pace. But was lovely we were all able to run together and the fact you were able to stick with myself and Claire and chat the whole way just further highlights your recent improvement. I think that was probably RPE 4 from how you were breathing, which is probably only the same had you done a hilly Horntye run. So I’m not too worried about the over training aspect here. If Sunday proves a lot of running we can always ease back a little on the plan next week ahead of PW. Allan was happy for me to pace you next Sunday by the way. At first he was reluctant but when I mentioned it was you he agreed. Well done Lou

thursday

FRIDAY

I don’t think I worked as hard today because I was very concerned about the sweat showing on my purple leggings 🤣 Also it was the worst instructor. At one point I turned to Nick and was like “what are we meant to be doing” 🤣

I’m glad you said that, not about the sweat on the leggings, but the slightly lower workload as we do have too many pts in the bank this week. I’ll knock a few off here, not as punishment but to keep you in the right zone. Well done Lou.

SATURDAY

24pts | 30 Mins Tempo (HM)

24 POINTS

10 Mins WU @ Easy Pace (RPE: 3)

30 Mins @ HM Pace (RPE: 6)

10 Mins CD @ Easy Pace (RPE: 3)

A good opportunity to practice your half marathon goal pace during a midweek tempo run. Factor in hills and weather, which may effect pace, in which case nail the right RPE.

24 Points

Thanks for pacing that. You probably can see how I get carried away. It’s almost like I put on my speeds and everything turns into a tempo or all out run 🤣 On my cool down I found Klare B and she’s trying to do sub 2.10 at Hastings. And we were saying we could start together. As Hastings is pretty hard for the hills.

It’s easily done, especially as the pace we were running was so much slower than you recent 5k. But you did great and it’s nice to have that strong finish. We’ll chat about PW nearer the time but looking forward to helping you run a massive PB. 2:10 would be a nice time to run at HHM as well as you tuck in with the pacer if you wanted. Lovely to run with you again.