I was back to 40+ miles last week of mostly easy running. It felt good to see the mileage return to something that would see me back on course for 2026 miles in 2026, although I’m not entirely back on track yet and will not be chasing any bigger totals just yet.
Overall, it felt like a tougher week than 45 miles of easy running. On Saturday I ran parkrun at a very steady 22 minutes, but my heart rate was about ten beats higher than it would be usually at that effort and my body clearly saw it as more of a threshold effort. In hindsight, that was a sign I should probably have backed off even further during the run but I could see the pacer ahead of me and he became my goal rather than listening to my body. Another lesson learned.
Saturday was also the middle of three fairly substantial days in a row of nine miles, seven miles, and twelve miles because of a trip to Manchester midweek. None of these runs were extreme on their own, but stacked together they created a sizeable cumulative load that left me very tired on Sunday.
Sunday’s 12 mile run has served a useful reminder that mileage isn’t just about the mileage total for a single day. It’s about how sessions and mileage accumulate across the week, how my body is responding after illness, and how well fuelled the effort is. Sunday’s twelve miles were done low on carbohydrate and, coupled with the accumulated mileage going into the run, felt tougher as a result.
This week will be another relatively easy one. I have the hilly Liversedge Half Marathon planned for Sunday, which I am running as a marathon pace rather than a race. Because of the hills I will probably run it to marathon heart rate rather than pace. With a mile warm-up and cool-down, it should come out at around fifteen miles in total.
As long as I don’t push the race too hard I will still be able to keep the mileage up toward 40+ the following week. I have then have Spen 20 on 22 March which will be another hilly marathon effort test.
