Settling Down

Things are settling into a nice bit of routine at the moment.

Over the last few weeks I have been working out just what training works for me and what doesn't, what sessions I enjoy and what ones I don't. Based on what I am finding I am starting to get a bit of a feel of what training is sustainable. I am not quite there yet, but I think I am pretty close to getting it right. A bit of riding, a bit of running and a bit of paddling each week. A nice mix.

Based on the routine that I have been developing, I have been slowly (and carefully) working at increasing my run volumes. A couple of weeks ago I covered about 30km in the week and last week I covered about 40km. If everything goes to plan then I should get in about 50km this week, which I think is going to be about the right, sustainable, weekly volume for me. I might eventually stretch it up to 60km/week, but that will be a gradual increase.

The running routine that I have settled on is working with 4 runs a week. I have always struggled to get in more than 4 runs a week because it is hard to slot them in around other forms of exercise and because my body has typically struggled when it is asked for more. The routine I am trying for this week is about an hour of steady running on Tuesday and Thursday, about 30 minutes easy on Friday (before coaching at Swim Smooth) and a longer steady run on Sunday. If that routine works for this week then that is what I am going to try and settle into as my normal routine for a few weeks going forward. If it continues to work and my body/heart is still playing along then I might try and push the Tuesday and Thursday runs out to 70 minutes so I can get in 15km ish. I have always found that to be a nice distance for a mid week run.

With the longer Sunday runs I am feeling my way a bit too. Last Sunday I covered 19km in a good steady 90 minutes and I think that is probably about the right distance for a while. I got through the 19km okay, but by the end I was feeling like I had done enough. The body was giving a few subtle signs that 90 minutes was about enough run time at the moment. I would love to get that run a bit longer, possibly getting out to 2 hours eventually, perhaps even up on the trails in the hills (I used to love my 2 hour Sunday runs), but that will depend entirely on the body. The reality is that trying to run easy/steady for two hours might just not work these days. I will see. 90 minutes will do me for a while though. Slow and steady.
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Based on all the above I was out running last night. 60 minutes covering about 13km as planned. Not flying, but about right, fitting almost perfectly in that 'Steady' pace zone that I need to work in these days. So far so good.

Hopefully thing go just as much to plan for tomorrow night.