Between TV sports coverage and actual activity in our house it was a non-stop weekend indeed. Saturday for me was the more peaceful of the two days, though entertaining two youngsters makes the word peaceful not quite the right choice of word perhaps. Our house is in full half-marathon training mode, a long run of almost two hours for my wife on Saturday, and then on Sunday my turn. Interspersed with this endeavour was the German Grand Prix and the final two days of the 2011 edition of the Tour de France (the later admittedly my addiction not really anyone else's).
Sunday's 11mile run took place nice and early in the morning. This was great as I could wear my long sleeve compression vest for a change - it is far, far more comfortable than the cropped version on a long run (though both serve to prevent joggers nipple their main purpose). The run was built of an hour and a half easy, then 20mins at simulated half-marathon pace. The easy pace phase was well, ahem, relatively easy... though the 20mins faster was very hard. Going faster wasn't helped by course selection on my part, it took in a very sharp steep climb! Still the Garmin GPS gave great feedback about the consistency of the easy section so all was good. It took 1hr 54min, though ironically I seem to have avoided the usual post-run pains.
Avoided the post run pains? Indeed, I have taken to cold showering my legs after a long session which helps a lot with the aches and stiffness. The other reason, two hours of gardening straight afterwards! I think the gardening could here be an example of 'active' recovery, which is suggested to ease the pains that otherwise creep up on you as you lie on the crouch thinking "that was a good run, now for my good rest!". Though I got my rest late in the day watching to see if Mark Cavendish would Manx Missile his way to the green jersey win on the Champs Elysees in the Tour de France climax. Happily he did, though the UK will undoubtedly carry on ignoring one of its most successful athletes of recent times.
All of my on the move activity meant that this weeks training table was pretty healthy. I ran over thirty miles in a week which I have never done before in my life. Albeit I ran further in seven days because I was moving my long run from Monday night to Sunday morning. Altogether a fabulous weekend.
PS. the Greyhound image is really just because I found it at FreeDigitalPhotos.net and fancied using it somewhere ;-) It is a fabulously composed image.
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