Week 9

I definitely think I jinxed it last week by saying Spring had arrived, as the snow made a very unwelcome return on Wednesday, and my running tights were back out!

Managed a fairly varied week of training this week. Started off Monday night as usual with Spin. Tuesday night went out a run. The weather was dreadful, heavy rain and very windy, so I blame the conditions for my slow 5k time of 29m 38s! I also ran up three hills during the run which didn’t help either! My mile splits were 9m 41s, 9m 41s and 9m 17s. So constantly slow for the first two and was flying by the final mile, but I think that was more to do with the strong tail wind than ability!!

Had Wednesday and Thursday off, then went to Glasgow Club Easterhouse on Friday night. On the spur of the moment we decided to go to a Spin class which was just starting! After that went into the gym and used the free weights. (Kettle bell swings must be surely be classed as a form of torture!)

Saturday morning Hubby decided that I was going to do some proper interval training for a change! After a mile warm up followed by some dynamic stretching, we did 10 x 400m sprints with a one minute rest period in between each rep. I think it has to be one of the most challenging work outs I’ve ever done! My combined time for the 4k covered was 19m 33s, which is so much faster than I could ever do it normally, but has made me wonder if I could push myself more when out running. My fastest rep was 1m 46s (ave 13.5kpm) and slowest 2m 0s (ave speed 11.9kpm), the rest being somewhere in between! It was a fantastic workout and I definitely think I do need to do more of it.

Went out my usual Sunday run and managed to do 10k, but it was a real struggle. Maybe it was a result of the training on Saturday, or I was just having an off day, but I had no speed at all in my legs! Somehow managed to push myself to 5k on the basis I’d have to run the same distance to get back! My time however was a disappointing 1hr 2m 16s, ave speed 9.6kpm. The main benefit that I can take from it is that even though I was struggling and wanting to give up, I was able to push myself to do the distance. My mile splits were 9m 36s, 10m 23s, 10m 32s, 10m 2s, 9m 53s and 9m 44s, so at least I did improve over the second half of the run!

Have just realised that this blog is week 9 of my training, and there are 9 weeks to go till the 10k! Half way point reached! I feel my training has been going well so far but definitely need to work on my speed!