Late last year, Nina and I bought a town house in Blaenau Ffestiniog. It is a beautiful old place, but needs a lot of love. I have realised that with work and running commitments, I am not finding enough time to restore the place.
So, from this week, I have moved to 3 day weeks at work. This means less money coming in, but hopefully the project will be finished sooner. Also, my parents have, very generously, taken our kids down to London this week. The idea being to free up Nina to help me with lots of jobs and admin etc. I miss the kids, but not the way Nina does.
Her brain is full of logic, telling her everything is fine, the kids are having a great time, and it is good for us to get some time together. But the rest of her body is just a tidal wave of emotion. She has been having trouble sleeping, she has been feeling sick, nervous and shaky.
We go to parkrun together on Saturday. It is a beautiful sunny morning and we rarely get the opportunity to do this. Nina is physically in shape to run around 24min, but as she falls further and further behind, I realise the emotional torment has taken it’s toll. She would have done well to read the article I posted a few weeks ago on my blog here, about how mental fatigue can directly and severely affect endurance.
After parkrun, we go to the gym, where I have very different hurdles to overcome. I am going to attempt the Canova session again, after 2 aborted attempts. Nina is going to help me with the pacing on the treadmill, so I just need to focus on the running bit. This is a one-off opportunity for me. She has a clip board with all the split times written down, and has been well briefed on the session. The treadmills are solid and well-built, but are controlled by touch screens, these have a massive flaw in that they can go haywire when sweat falls onto them. And when I am doing a big session like this, a lot of sweat is going to fall. Nina passes me a towel every rep to mitigate the sweat before it lands on the screen. She is adjusting the speed with dry hands. Just over halfway through, everything is going great, I realise I am going to finish the session. Nina wipes the sweat off the screen carefully, but accidentally knocks the key card inserted at the bottom. Treadmill stops immediately and starts resetting. Session is over.
I am very disappointed. I am angry with the stupid machine not being built for anyone to sweat! But I know I have to pick myself up quickly and move on. I’m coming into good shape, next time the session will go better (I keep saying that!).
Non-running related highlight of the week
Proper proper LIE IN on Sunday!
We both sleep in till around 8am, I get up, make tea, and come back to bed, while it rains and pours outside. So nice!
Best thing on the internet this week:
Team Ingebrigtsen documentary
I don’t even know where to start. A Norwegian dad, has loads of kids, then trains them up from very young to be world class runners. He is succeeding, the journey is mind-blowing. It is changing everything I thought I knew about the Nature vs Nuture debate. Highly recommend!
link here
Thing I’m digging this week:
Berlin European Athletics Championships
Stadium is packed every night, incredible atmosphere, incredible performances. Too many to mention. Top 3 are…
- GB athlete Dina Asher-Smith wins the triple sprint – 100m, 200m and 4x100m. She does it in super fast, world leading, GB record times
- GB athlete Laura Muir’s bravery finally pays off as she front runs to victory in 1500m, gaining her first major outdoor gold. Long time coming
- Norweigan athlete, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, youngest of 3 competing brothers (see Youtube link above) wins the 1500m & 5000m double, at 17 years old! Incredible that he even qualified for these championships, to then win both races, quite comfortably, is just insane. Usain Bolt like talent. I like to think I keep my ear close to the ground, but I didn’t even nearly predict anything like this.
| 6/8/2018 | AM | PM |
| Monday | REST | 10tm @ 6.50min miling |
| expecting to feel beat up after 21miler yest, feel pretty ok | ||
| Tuesday | REST | 5 x 1km in 2.59 (3min rest). 1 x 400m in 64. 9 miles total |
| skip AM run, heavy rain, only wearing shorts and t-shirt | ||
| Wednesday | 6tm @ 7min miling | 10 @ 6.50min miling |
| Thursday | 10tm @ 7min miling | 10 @ 7.30min miling |
| Friday | 10 @ 7min miling | REST |
| 10 miles in 70min feeling like an easy, fun thing | ||
| Saturday | 5 x (1km in 3.20/1km in 3.40). 13 miles total | REST |
| gym treadmill fails halfway through session. Annoyyyiiiiinng | ||
| Sunday | 5 @ 6 miling, 3.5 @ 5.50 miling, 2.5 @ 5.40 miling, 1 @ 5.30 miling (rest = 1 mile float @ 7min pace). 15 miles total | 10 |
| feel v tired AM, feel great PM | ||
| TOTAL: | 102 miles | tm = treadmill |
