A perfect week?

After my christmas mishap and weeks of rehab this past week has almost been the pefect week!  63 miles, some decent long runs of 11 miles, 10 miles and 17 miles plus a great track session of 10 x 800m off a short recovery!   I say almost perfect because there is still that little niggly feeling of the ankle not being quite 100% - it may be a confidence thing or just that little bit of stiffness around the ankle as I start a run.   My session of 800's this week on a freezing cold night on the track was a massive step forward for me with an average of 2-41 for the set.   This set was a good indicator for me for my forthcoming marathon and although not quite a Yasso's 800 it was close enough for me to get some confidence from it given that I "negative split" the set with a faster second half.  For it to be true Yasso 800 set I would have done a 1:1 jog recovery between 800's but I opted for 90 second rest recovery instead.   Read up on Yasso here...

http://www.bartyasso.com/800s

I was particularly pleased with the set of 10 as it would have been easy to "ease off" but as the ankle felt good I pushed on to the full set and was left with that "job done" feeling!

Today was my longest run for some time with 17.25 miles completed in just over 2 hours.   Now I feel like my marathon training has started.  It is 13 weeks tomorrow to the Marathon of the North so plenty of time to up the miles on my long run and get a bit closer to marathon pace.  Given that it is snowing outside at the moment which could make a long run a bit more tricky I was pleased with my choice of long run today.  

There are still a few aches and pains associated with the ankle and I have got hold of a hi tech device that is easing a bit of plantar fasciitis that I am putting down to my left calf being slightly tight still following the ankle strain.    The relief that this thing gives is out of this world and I would recommend it to anyone suffering from PF!  For a bit more info on PF see Gary Dunns excellent blog...

http://dunnrunning.blogspot.com

 

 The Plantar Fasciitis Relief implement of choice!