Back in the land of training

It has now been two weeks since the Highland Fling race and I have completed my prescribed recovery period. Even last weekend, I felt that I could have done some more serious training sessions but I have stuck to my original plan of just doing a few very easy jogs over these two weeks and my legs feel better for it.

Today, it was time to get back into training mode and I spent a lovely hour and a half out on the hills, feeling good and running smoothly. The route along Glenderaterra is one of my favourites and part of the Lakeland 100 course so I feel like a frequent flier.

Tomorrow, I hope to get out and include some more substantial hills, particularly working on the conditioning of my quads for the big race (only 11 weeks away.) I have been giving some thought as to how I need to slightly tweek my training over these remaining weeks. On the build up to the Fling, I have done relatively little mountain running, however, this needs to change if my training is to be more Lakeland 100 specific.

The big building blocks are in place; two more long recce runs with John Kynaston and the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon. What I hope to do in the course of normal weekly training is to include a tempo run (60 - 80 minutes), a hill run (one climb/descent, 60 - 80 minutes) and a mountain run (multiple hills, 2 - 4 hours). The fact that I have decades of fell running in my legs means I don't have to go stupid at this but psychologically, knowing I have put in the hill work will help me come the end of July.

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary", Vince Lombardi