Are we all surviving the Summer Holidays? I’ve heard lots of comments about it being harder to get out for a run when the kids aren’t at school. Even though my son is older and I can leave him at home on his own I still find the holidays difficult. I think it is because we are out of routine – and I’ve realised that I thrive on routine!
I’ve not taken any time off work so far these holidays (I’ve got a week off right at the end!), so work continues as normal – although I’m lucky that I work from home but everything just feels out of sync. I’m sure that this shows in my running too: I don’t feel as focused; I don’t feel as though I’m improving.
Running with The 401 Challenge seems ages ago, but it was only last week ! I was a bit sore for a few days afterwards – hips as usual. I did a very short run a couple of days afterwards and parkrun as usual on Saturday but by the beginning of this week felt OK again. A short early morning run on Monday to start off the week and club run Tuesday evening. I wish I’d taken some pictures as it was a perfect evening, we were running through the countryside as the sun went down – it was gorgeous. 8 miles done.
It was a club track session last night – not often that I go to two club sessions in a week! I didn’t feel quite on form so found it hard, but session completed.
I did do something different last night with my Garmin. I normally have the auto lap feature turned on, lapping every 1 mile. I find this really useful when looking back on runs to see where my pace drops. However, it isn’t so useful on track / interval sessions. So I turned it off ! Which means you can press to manually create a lap (once you’ve worked out which button……). Obviously this depends on remembering to press the button…… I only forgot once or twice!
The session we did was:
30, 60, 90, 120 sec efforts with half the length of effort as rest (15, 30, 45, 60 secs) x 2
We were supposed to be aiming for 85% effort throughout (I find this bit hard to judge).
I like track sessions and definitely think they have done me some good – we will soon be finishing them until next year and I will miss them.
I’m currently putting together a 16 week training plan – this takes me through to November and the last race that I think I’ll be doing. I’ve realised that whatever plan I do needs to be fairly flexible, but I work better when following a plan rather than making it up as I go along. Any tips?
a mile run 
I’m exactly the same, can’t get my head around anything with children at home. Well done on some speedy track reps 🙂 One thing I’ve learned, even when planning for a race 6 months ahead, is not to enter ‘B’ races too early in case you can’t make them, then you don’t waste money or beat yourself up if injury/illness/life get in the way. Which race are you aiming for in November ? 🙂
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Very good point not to enter too many races when you get carried away! I’m looking at doing the Dalby Dash 10k in November and possibly Bridlington Half in October (just updated my races page).
I’m trying to find a balance between enough races to keep me motivated but without it taking over……
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