As always Monday was my rest day. This was also my first day back in the office in a long time. I was really quite excited and it felt good to go in. Our offices/Company are involved in key equipment in relation to the Covid crisis so the reception has already been set up with gloves/masks, temperature control etc for some time. Although I was not only 2 metres away but more like 12 metres away from another living person for most of the day it was still a nice change from home working.

Tuesday

I went for my usual run on Tuesday. After having some Achilles issues recently I decided to do a relatively flat 4 mile run (equates to undulating around here). It was one of those lovely I feel great days where you go faster and feel amazing. I LOVE those days 😄. On my return I made my usual smoothie but this time I made one that resembled something from ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’.

Wednesday

I decided to go out for my bike ride rather than turbo, since the weather was so lovely. I did my usual ‘up and over’ as I call it as its a very pretty hilly but not too steep hilly route which essentially goes up and then down and can be done in under an hour.

Thursday

Run day again and I decided to do my four miles at a slower rate and keep within Z2 heart rate zone. It is deemed beneficial to do the majority of your training (80%) in Z2 when you are training for long distance events and a its also believed that even for shorter events its better to do a really slow run and then a really fast run or intervals rather than doing everything at an intermediate pace (a one pace pony stays a one pace pony). There are 4 heart rate zones and each one represents a certain % of your maximum heart rate. Theoretically your maximum heart rate is approx. 220 less your age. This would put mine around 169. In reality mine is closer to 190 so the theory doesn’t take into account fitness and genetics. So Z2 for me means keeping my heart rate under 140. Sounds easy but I nearly always go over this when running. Finally on Thursday I found that golden pace and got my heart rate down (woohoo!). This is exciting for me as its also then the pace I should aim for in an Ironman marathon (assuming I had any legs left).

Friday

I repeated my up and over route on the bike but this time I tightened my cleats before setting off. What a difference! If it hadn’t been for the loud clicking noises on my bike and unbelievable bad luck with every traffic light, parked lorries, people stepping out etc. I would of got a PB on my route (next time). On getting home I asked my husband about the clicking noise, convinced it had something to do with my left pedal/cleat. After much riding up and down the road with my foot in and out of the pedal, my husband points out that the pedal is simply banging on my bicycle pump with every turn. Aghghgh. Needless to say I felt really silly 😝.

Later on Friday we had our personal training session in the back garden.

Saturday

For the first time in weeks I decided I would do my long run (8 miles) as flat as possible. The only way to do that around here is to run down by the canal so I was up early to avoid having to run near too many people.

First order of the day was roll out those calves to avoid further Achilles issues.

On the way around I decided to practice taking running selfies using the timer on my phone. My initial photos were pretty bad….

Later on I got a bit better at it

Sunday

Today we went on a 50 mile bike ride. It’s the furthest I’ve been in quite a while but it was also out on the flat plains on Cheshire. It occurred to me its been a while since I’ve done a flat ride and it felt so easy and speedy compared to doing the hilly rides around here. I got a lot of personal bests en route so clearly tighter cleats and practicing on hilly routes makes you faster. Also (and I take no credit for this amusing anecdote) but apparently TITS make you faster too (a fellow blogger was debating this issue in a very witty blog she wrote). Yes indeed the greater the TITS the more you can improve speed. I had to ask what this stood for, apparently it’s Time In The Saddle (ahhhhhh).