Back in the saddle last week with a solid 13 hours of training and thankfully, I seem to be pretty much fully recovered from my Forestman exertions. It was finished off with a really enjoyable ride around the Surrey Hills with some of the peeps from Tritalk (thanks, again, for organising it Phil). 75 miles completed with some hard efforts up Coombe and Crocknorth but I was able to get towed most of the way round. ;-)
I had been chatting to Phil during the ride about getting my run legs sorted in preparation for a future IM race. I have almost become scared of running too often, feeling like my legs are made of glass and that I must constantly be vigilant in case I bring on an injury that curtails my training significantly. Once again, I think it's a state of mind that I have allowed myself to develop and I need to have a lot more confidence. The fact is, my 'run' legs have not been injured for well over 6 months, so what's holding me back? Simple answer; me!
Phil had 2 suggestions based on his experience. Firstly, go out and run every day and build up my run volume gradually. The second idea was to enter an ultra marathon!
Well, the first point is one that I am going to attempt and should be well within my grasp. I intend to run every day between now and August 31st which is a total of 53 days from when I started at the weekend. I will run primarily by feel; if I need to run short and slow then I Will do so; if I can do 3 hours, then I will. I also intend to ensure that it's not all one paced and get some speed work going on. Some of my runs will also be brick efforts off the bike, both long and short.
Being a keen listener of the Marathon Talk podcasts I was really interested in the Comrades Ultra marathon and the idea of having a go at one really appeals; I'm not entirely sure that I can get to a state where my legs are bomb proof enough to run for 56 miles from London to Brighton, but my self imposed summer running challenge will at least kick start the process and get me running properly again.
Three days in and all good do far.....
A friend of mine did comrades and highly recommends it!! And you Get a holiday to go with it : ) good effort with the running plan, anymore thoughts on DW 2012???
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