Monday Feb 11th . HRV= 66 White.
A slight improvement on yesterday and the slower pace or lack of climbing strength probably worked to my advantage. Unplanned day off work as my daughter is sick, took the opportunity to do a short run and felt good so ran the middle 20 minutes of a 40 minute run at a faster pace. I’m thinking about the 50K race on Saturday so my plan will be reduced volume but increased intensity for the next few days. I’m cutting out chocolate and as much junk as I can from today. Body Weight: 72Kg
Plan for tomorrow is lunchtime MAF session of 40-45 minutes.
Tuesday Feb 12th . HRV= 73 White.
Moving in the right direction. Lunchtime MAF session as planned but my usual 10K loop took a little bit longer than I expected. Leaving the office after work I could feel my left calf tighten up so my priority now is to get that sorted as running related injuries don’t just happen and by the time something starts to surface it could mean that the damage is done. Did some foam rolling and made a few phone calls trying to book a massage. Nothing sorted by bed time, not happy.
Plan for tomorrow is a sports massage.
Wednesday Feb 13th . HRV= 75 White.
A great result but today is looking like a rest day as I’m not going to chance running when I know that something is amiss. Leg felt ok as the day went on and managed to book an evening appointment for a massage so I took a chance and did a short easy run in the rain. Feeling slightly sluggish during the run and that could be diet related. Massage was relatively pain free and the signs are good for Saturday. There goes my excuse!
Bedtime Bodyweight: 71.7Kg.
Plan for tomorrow is an easy 10K
Thursday Feb 14th . HRV=78 White.
HRV moving in the right direction ahead of my race and the easy day yesterday seems to have helped. Started the day with a bowl of porridge with raisins, honey, chia seeds & coconut oil to start fuelling up for the 50K. For a race of longer than 100K I wouldn’t worry too much about my carb intake in the days beforehand but for the shorter Ultras that will be run at a slightly higher intensity I think it’s important to have the muscles loaded. Shortened my planned run to 5K and ran most of it at under 120bpm.
This day 2005 I was taking part in the Yukon Arctic Ultra.
Plan for tomorrow will be an easy run of less than 30 minutes with a few strides just to keep the legs moving.
Friday Feb 15th . HRV=73 White.
Same breakfast as yesterday. Happy with HRV and ran as planned but changed the strides to 6*1 minute with 1 minute recovery for a total of 5K in 30 minutes. Will rest up this evening and hopefully have an early night. All going well I’ll be in bed early enough to wake before the alarm.
Plan for tomorrow is a 50K Trail Race. The race starts at 10am so my plan is a 7am breakfast of the same as previous 2 days.
Saturday Feb 16th . HRV=76 White.
A good result for race day. Up at 6:30am for a 10:00am start and had my usual breakfast of porridge made with pinhead oats and added coconut oil, chia seeds, honey and raisins. Might sound a lot but it’s less than half a cup of oats and made with water. Arrived at the race start in good time and went over the feeding plan with my daughter Aisling. I expected to complete each 5K loop in just under 20 minutes and from the second loop I’d alternate my fuelling with a gel or small bottle of water. All seemed ok until the 3rd lap when my legs just wouldn’t respond to the pace. My heart rate was dipping so I knew the power just wasn’t there. My lap times slowed from here to the finish and there were times when the voices in my head were saying why didn’t you just take the day off but for an Ultra Runner these are the days when you get to test and train your mental strength. Stopping when it gets tough is taking the easy way out unless of course you risk injuring yourself. I finished in 3hr57 which was 27 minutes slower than my time from last year but that doesn’t bother me as I’d rather have a bad run than take the easier option of a DNF (Did Not Finish) which can appear more respectable to some than the slower time.
It’s all about the recovery now and first thing I did after the race was drink a bottle of coconut water to speed my rehydration and on the drive home I had a serving of cherry juice. Spent the rest of the day wearing Under Armour Recovery tights and then had the best recovery aid of them all, ‘an early night’.
Plan for tomorrow is a recovery run with duration dependent on HRV and muscle soreness.
Sunday Feb 17th. HRV=59 Amber.
Didn’t have a great nights sleep as I’m slightly congested but the early night meant I probably got enough sleep to wake without an alarm and just in time to meet up for a club run. Legs are feeling surprisingly good and thats further proof that I didn’t run as I should have yesterday. Could probably continue as normal today but my HRV means I won’t get carried away and I’ll keep it sensible. Glad I felt able to run as it would have been a waste of a beautiful morning and the company made an easy run easier as the chat kept the pace very sensible and before I knew it I’d covered 16K and decided to call it a day.Weekly HRV Summary
This will now end my endurance / base building phase as I aim to build on the training I was doing for the Siberian Black Ice Race. From next week I’ll start to add in some hill repeats and hill runs to improve on my running specific leg strength and if time allows I’ll try end the week with a run of 40-60K. I need a few runs of this duration to help get back to race weight as every gram counts during a 24-hr race.
