Oh Manchester So Much To Answer For ...

Manchester (again) Week Four

Oh Manchester, So Much To Answer For
Week 4

Well, it's that time once again and it only feels like Amsterdam was 5 minutes ago, but here we go again ...

The week in numbers ...
Miles ran: 42.73
Gym visits: 0
Chocolate eaten: couple of bars
Alcohol drunk: 2 bottles of red

Weight: 11st10lb

Monday 19th January

As always we are start the week with a rest day.

Pretty quiet with work today so not really a lot to say.

I wake up, have a cup of coffee whilst listening to some music, today's highlights were the Handsome Boy Modeling School and Big Special. Then take Murphy for a walk, home for a bit of work, have some lunch, have a snooze and take a delivery of some coffee capsules.

I bought 200, turns out that's quite a lot, it completely fills the entire coffee drawer. I've never been great at estimating numbers of things.

Reminds me of during lockdown when I bought loads of yeast. I had no idea how much yeast you need to bake bread as I'd never bought any before. To avoid paying a fiver delivery I kept adding more and more yeast to my order because it was cheap and ended up with about 5kg of the stuff.

Turns out a loaf of bread only needs about 5g

Saved a fiver but ended up throwing about 4.95kg of yeast away after a few months.

I still count this as a win.

Tuesday 20th January

A funny old day, didn't sleep well on Monday and woke up tired and a bit out of sorts.

Rushing around a lot during the day and then it was club in the evening and I just wasn't feeling particularly sociable. I set the groups off and did the first rep by myself. Second rep I stuck just behind B team and then the next 2 again I ran alone, final rep I pushed hard and then done and an easy run home by myself.

Home, shower and a glass of wine whilst watching telly with Murphy and Marvin both asleep on my legs.

Talking of Marvin, he's become a complete pain in the arse. He's my cat by the way, not ones of my kids. He had developed a weird obsessive bond with me, he follows me everywhere. I have a shower or a bath and he waits outside the room for me. I walk around the house tidying or whatever and he constantly follows me meowing and rubbing his face against my face every time he can. He only allows me to feed him, someone else gives him food and he looks at it with disgust and comes to find me, I pretend to put food in his dish and he eats it

He often just sits about a metre away from me and stares into my eyes.

He sat and watched me eat my lunch yesterday and kept coming right up into my face and turned his head to look me right in the eyes. Gail sat down next to me and he turned round and bit her.

He scares me.

Wednesday 21st January

I've got a horrible busy day today and need to do some easy miles.

Work all morning and then about 1pm I can get out, it's cold, it's raining and it's a 20mph head wind along the coast. I head to Cullercoats, loop round the fountain and head home, I'm soaked and freezing cold.

Lie on the settee and listen to some music, I've got this new high definition music streamer, I probably haven't mentioned this yet. Anyway, I lie down and within seconds Marvin has sensed I'm home and is on my lap and we listen to some Marvin Gaye.

Rest of the afternoon is spent working and then in the evening I have another glass of wine and watch some shit telly and yes Marvin is once again with me.

He scares me.

Thursday 22nd January

The weather is once again shit.

It's thresholds, today is warm up and then 5 x 2km where the first km is threshold pace and then straight into the second km at marathon pace.

The wind is blowing north and it's awful. I decide to try and make some of it easier and some of it even harder. I run to Tynemouth and then do the first 2km heading downhill with the wind behind me the whole way. The first km is way too fast and I'm trying to slow down, I drop into mara pace and again too fast, I'm trying to slow but the tail wind makes this really hard. Rep one done and I decide to cut recovery to 1 minute instead of two as it's cold.

Rep 2 and this is where it gets tricky, the first km at threshold pace is downhill with the wind behind me and it's too fast, after 1km I turn to run at mara pace uphill and into the wind. This is a seriously stupid idea, I'm struggling to get under 9 minutes mile pace and when a gust hits me I literally stop in my tracks. 2 reps done and 3 left to go.

Reps 3 and 4 are basically identical to rep 2. First half way too fast and second half way too slow but I'm absolutely knackered. The wind never stops and just saps all my energy. One rep left to go and I decide to run this whole one heading towards Whitley to get an advantage of the wind.

Threshold pace is supposed to be around 7 minute miles and I'm running closer to 6:30 pace, I stick with it. Then the watch beeps and it's time to slow it up a bit. I'm tired, cold, fed up and want to go home so I just keep going. The pace is way too fast but the faster I go, the sooner I'm done.

Last rep done, jog home and 10 miles in the bag.

In the evening I head to the club and then Sainsbury's reps. I run with D team which is roughly my threshold pace so feels comfortable and gives me another 7 miles for the day.

Friday 23rd January

I have no desire whatsoever to run today.

I'm busy working and have a small window to go out bit it's cold and bloody windy again and I just can't face it. I walk to Tesco to get some cat food and also grab a large family sized bag of Frazzles.

I decide a better use of my time is to lie on the settee and eat Frazzles and listen to music. I've got a big session tomorrow and another long run Sunday so mileage will still be 50+ for the week so I can afford to take a rest day.

Saturday 24th January

The plan.

Up at 7am.

Out the door at 7:20 to run 4 miles to Tynemouth at easy pace. Then a 3 mile rep at marathon pace heading to Whitley, this finishes at Rendezvous and then a one mile jog recovery around parkrun course. This basically finishes at parkrun start and then another 3 mile rep on parkrun course at mara pace, then a one mile jog which brings me back to parkrun start and if all on pace it will be about 9am. Then my final 3 mile effort will be Whitley parkrun and then a 1 mile jog home.

I've planned it all, paces are sorted, some allowance for the wind, distances all measured out.

And then, the reality.

I drank 2 bottles of wine last night.

I don't remember going to bed.

I forgot to set my alarm.

I wake up at 8:30 and feel horrendous.

I go back to sleep.

I get up at 2pm and just about manage to walk downstairs without being sick.

I lie on the settee with a blanket like a pathetic old man and sleep all day.

At 8pm I eat another family sized bag of Frazzles and during the day drink 2 litres of coke.

I go to bed.

My hangover has not eased.

Sunday 25th January

I need to do yesterday's session today.

I wake up at 9 and I'm still hungover.

I get ready and head out and decide I'm doing it no matter what.

It's all programmed into my watch, I hit the start button and it's a 4 mile warm up. It's windy once again, I'm 2 miles in and rethinking my life choices. I get to 4 miles, this is the point I need to turn to do mara pace. I know for a fact I don't have it in me, it's pointless even trying.

I just keep running at an easy pace and continue through Tynemouth and into Shields. I convince myself it's just about miles today and loop through Shields and head back to Tynemouth. The wind blows me down the coast and I start hitting mara pace and a bit quicker, I get home after 13 miles and I'm done. Later we walk into Whitley and end up in the pub, I order a pint of coke and some skinny fries. I'm off the booze.

This was very much a week of two halves. Felt great up til Thursday and then it all went downhill, there's a few reasons for this. Firstly the weather is really pissing me off, it means you never hit pace but constantly feel wrecked. Secondly, a couple of 'things' got me down this week so mentally I wasn't feeling 100% and I struggle to motivate myself when this happens. I go through the motions but my brains not really engaged and I usually feel these are wasted sessions.

And then Friday. I think I just needed a bit of a blow out. I was sitting in the kitchen with my family having a drink and relaxing and chatting and I love this and to be honest I'm glad I did it. I'm not glad I had the hangover, that was awful but that's the price you pay.

And here we are at the end of block 1 of Manchester training.

I've ran 209.8 miles. I've missed 4 easy runs. I've missed one marathon pace session and I've not hit pace in one threshold session. Overall that's not bad. On a positive note my weight is down and I feel good in my running.

We now start the second 4 week block and I'm making a promise here that I'm going to do every session. No excuses. No hangovers. No eating family sized bags of Frazzles. No Toblerones.