Recovery after a long run or race is important so, with that in mind, I went to tonight’s club session as usual just a few hours after landing back home following my successful weekend in London.
My legs felt grand, but I wasn’t sure how they’d cope so I decided to go with the 30-minute group tonight although I might have been persuaded to run with some of the other groups had my usual running buddies been there … however (un)fortunately work commitments kept them away!
I wasn’t looking for an easy night, just not a long run. That said, the 30-minute group turned out to be quite a useful outing anyway. A challenging enough run which took us part of the way up the steady climb that is the Ballymoney Road and a few other little inclines along the way. There were also very, very few stops for traffic – effectively we ran for the full half-an-hour (or 38 minutes to be precise!) non-stop, getting faster the further we ran.
Indeed, the first mile was 12:47, then 12:29 and 11:54 … not bad at all for the 30-minute group. I then decided to run on home, clocking a time of 11:18 for the final mile on my own.
That took me to four miles for the night, a decent enough recovery I thought. My legs felt good which was very reassuring, especially after pushing them so hard yesterday. Also pleasing was running almost exclusively (96%) in HR Zones 3 and 4, producing negative splits throughout and feeling quite comfortable within myself at the same time.
Next up this week will likely be a long run on Wednesday, after which I’ll make a decision on whether or not to enter the Shane’s Castle Half Marathon on Saturday.
Also, my Virtual Runner February 100km medal arrived in the post … that’s two down with ten to go to complete the series for the year. I’m at 28km already this month, a good start, hopefully there’ll be no pesky snow to interrupt my schedule this time!
HUFF, PUFF AND SHUFFLE 