On 29th November I ran the Florence marathon. I had a goal time of 3h25. The training had gone brilliantly, the weatherman promised a good day.

( The long story )

Next time round do this week on your own.

Mon 16 Rest
Tue 17 7 miles slow - went out with usual group at club night.
Wed 18 5 miles slow
Thu 19 7 miles easy - group went slow all the way round
Fri 20 Rest
Sat 21 5 miles easyish with a bit of fartlek in the middle.
Sun 22 10 miles slow. Went out early before the weather was due to get worse. All ( Read more... )

Mon 19 3 miles nice and easy along the cyclepath.
Tue 20 3 miles and a bit of yoga at lunchtime, 6 miles - ish - including efforts in the evening. 400m hill efforts up Carnatic x 8. Small group, convinced them to do the whole hill. Worked for me, but it took us forever, LOL.  Did I feel guilty? No.  It'll do them good.
Wed 21 7 miles dead slow. Work ( Read more... )

Mon 12 4 miles nice and easy along the cyclepath with A from work.
Tue 13 7.5 miles. 15 min easy, 30 fartlek, 10 easy. Ran around the hills of Woolton in a reasonable approximation of a fartlek exercise. Either I'm getting fitter or we didn't work very hard, because I only really felt like I was pushing myself a couple of times. Having said all ( Read more... )

Mon 5 3 miles easy. Recovery run with A along the cycle path.

Tue 6 7 miles. Should really have been 9 with 1.5 warm up, 6x1M efforts @ 5k to mile pace & finish with 1.5 cool down. Plan was to do 3 at 5k & 3 @ mile or as close as possible. Plan looks good on a piece of paper. My little group nearly fainted at the thought of six efforts and ( Read more... )

Mon 28 4 miles dead easy. 9'30" or thereabouts along the loop line with A from work. Nice way to spend your lunch hour, I think.
Tue 29 6 miles. Ish? Champions league efforts at the park, early because of the big game. Easy jog for 3/4 mile to the park and then two laps fartlek around the park for 4.6 miles. Easy jog home. I found tonight's ( Read more... )

Mon 21 Bike ride.
Tue 22 7 miles Track efforts. 2 miles easy, 5k time trial (8x400m @ 7' with 8x200m @ 8' plus a final 200m @ 7') and 2 miles easy home.
Wed 23 7 miles. Should have been slow but we ended up going at marathon pace. Nice easy one tomorrow then.
Thu 24 6 miles. We ended up doing pretty much the prescribed exercise. 2 easy, 3 @ ( Read more... )

Mon 14 40 min bike ride.
Tue 15 6 miles. Club night efforts. Tonight I was able to do my own thing alongside everyone else, which was nice. :) Whilst everyone was doing one lap of one the local fields in pairs, I did 2 laps on my own. Worked out at about 4' per effort, with 4' rest in between. The rest seemed a little excessive, to be honest. 1 ( Read more... )

Holiday week. Never thought I'd get a full week out of this one.

Mon 7 4 miles easyish around Bergamo. At least as easy as it gets in a place that appears to be entirely uphill, LOL!
Tue 8 Rest
Wed 9 7.5 miles slow/marathon pace/slow to and around le Cascine, then back home.
Thu 10 Rest
Fri 11 4 miles. Ish? Went out way too soon after lunch ( Read more... )

Week 2.

Mon 31 Rest.
Tue 1 7 miles slow. Didn't feel like doing efforts, so I went out with the usual suspects. From next week I will have to start doing my own efforts, since the usual club ones will be too short. Not particularly looking forward to that.
Wed 2 7 miles slow. Went out with J after work. Felt a bit tired. I think I will have to ( Read more... )