A Good Week (well, 8 days!!)

I have done another 62 mile week this week - the same as last week - and I'm really pleased with that.
For most of the week, I have been feeling the effects of the Draycote Marathon, and the effort that I put in there, and so I have again been keeping the intensity down - and getting the miles in.

I raced the Centurion Grand Prix 5 mile today.
This is my running club, and the series is a fantastic one to participate in. There were a couple of folk that I wanted to have a decent chat with - which I managed to do - and I was going to warm up by running around the 2K fun run with my younger son.

Legs were feeling a bit tired, to be honest. But my calves, which had been a little tender since last Sunday, appeared to be behaving themselves.
So I thought that I'd give the race a decent shot - and have a crack at my pb - which stood at 31:05.

There was a larger-than-normal field of fast whippety blokes today (and some VERY speedy girls!!) so I settled in just behind that group at the start.
Legs felt strong - if a little lethargic - and the first mile was a 5:58.
I felt OK at that pace, actually, and was quite surprised to be sub 6

On to the second (longer) lap, and I went past a club mate who tends to set off a little fast and then slow up a little after 2 miles. Ahead were three runners, including Thomas, another fellow club member, that I set about targeting to see if I could catch.

Mile 2 was 6:07. Pretty pleased with that too

Mile 3 was mostly into the wind - and it was at about this point that I started to really feel the fatigue. I was running strongly, my legs were simply a bit tired, and although they weren't 'weakening', I simply couldn't make them turn over any faster.
6:20 showed this!!!!

For all of Mile 4 I could see that I was getting closer to Thomas, and I overtook him pretty much as Mr Garmin chirped for the Mile.
6:17 - so holding the pace reasonably well.

I tried to kick on when we came to the one small uphill there is on the course - I could hear Thomas trying to pull me back on it - but I can DO hills.... and by powering up it, and knowing that there was less than a mile to the finish - that seemed to give me more impetus.

There is a very tight turn with about 500m to go, and I glanced back to see that I had a reasonable cushion. And 100m later I tripped on an virtually invisible stone, and fell.
I was up very quickly, and hadn't lost much time, but felt like my running rhythm had been completely disrupted.

I did what I could to run in strongly to the finish, and was VERY pleased to see that I was under 31 minutes, and the last mile was 6:09, including the fall.

It rounded off a very nice 8 days, and shows that the volume and intensity of the training I've been doing has made me stronger and slightly faster overall

Short recovery run this evening was delightful.