This training week was back up to pushing the legs harder and working on legs that are more tired. Safe to say that stairs were not my friend.
This is the penultimate maximising of my training weeks before I start the sweet 2 week taper period. The aim through this week was to push the running harder and longer, and with higher frequency. The big consideration in this week was to get through it without triggering my tendonitis issues too far.
This made the week feel a bit like Run-Eat-Sleep-Repeat as every evening, I was there for 30 mins sat in the kitchen running hot and ice-cold buckets of water to give some well needed contrast bathing to my problem lower leg.
Factoring this week around a very busy job, family/kids, a wife who also is training hard, and a crazy dog who needs plenty of attention, meant I had very little down-time for myself. Something which is not going to improve.
Right now I'm balancing an awful lot of different tasks and responsibilities and ensuring I'm keeping a considerable number of plates spinning happily. Lose sight of any of these and the whole lot risks falling down. Everything from work, to walking dog 4x a day, garden landscaping, arranging furniture repairs and EV electric point installations and stretching. Not much fun to be had this week and next week. But I can see the finish (or in this case ultra-starting) line.
My point is, it can be done. All of it. I just need to be well organised, everyone around me clear on their responsibilities, and to take every opportunity I can to grab a quick few minutes to clear my head for the next onslaught of tasks to get through.
That said, I got to where I was aiming for with this training week. It is now taking up considerable amounts of time and energy, but I expected this in the final training peak leading into this week and next week. That's OK. The week's training looked like this:
Monday - Rehab
Tuesday - 1hr Run Trail + Rehab
Wednesday - 1hr Gym/cross trainer + rehab
Thursday - 1hr Run Trail + Rehab
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 'Rest' (lots of family running around)
Sunday - 35km long run
The long run went well. Lots of hills and covered the 35km in under 6hrs including time to have some food halfway through. My pace has been good (avg 6.2km/h on the long run and speeding up on the hourly runs to 7km/h. Just to push the legs faster on what are now becoming Tempo runs. I'm being cautious though as pushing too hard and I run a very high risk of triggering the tendonitis and my aim is to at least start the 100k feeling fresh and pain free. How long that lasts is anyone's guess, but at least I'll aim to start feeling that I'll be pain free for at least the first quarter of the route. The stats don't account for the 20 mins daily ankle strength work, or the 45 mins treatment (buckets) and 20 mins stretching I'm doing most evenings. The time adds up.
I've decided that with the dry weather to do all my running on trail right now. I need the hills and to condition running both up and down hills is helping build more strength in knees and ankles. Next week's training week is another step up so I go into this in decent shape.
Fat loss progress
Finally the needle is moving again. I chose to add carbs into my eating at the weekend to keep my energy levels a little higher, and to mix it up for the metabolism a bit. I took in electrolytes/carbs and a small snack on my 35km and that seems to have yielded a small breakthrough. I've managed to shift almost a Kilo since the last weigh in. It looks like I'll be toeing-the-line in 3 weeks around the 95kg mark.
Starting Weight: 112kg
Wk 18 Weigh-in: 97.9Kg
Weight Lost = 14.1kg in 114 days
Remaining weight to lose = 7.9Kg to target
Time left before the 100km - 3 weeks
I think the weight should come down a bit more from here, and working on that to help feel in a good mental place with it before I start to change my eating in earnest in the week leading to the event.
I'm still not drinking enough water though. Being so busy I forget to drink far too often, but we've not long to go and I'm in better condition than I've been for years so with a couple of weeks after my final big mile week to come I can start to work on taking out those extra kg's I'd like to have gone before the event. It's 3 weeks so if I eat clean, drink lots, keep moving, etc it should get to that 95kg mark. Let's see!
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