Speeding up

The first half of this challenge was mainly about running slowly for a long time. With a 10k and two half marathons coming up, my training for the next ten weeks or so is now more about shorter, faster runs. This week as well as 7 miles in Greenwich and a couple of lunchtimes runs along the Thames I did a tempo run in Dulwich (the idea being to run the first third of the run slowish, then speed up to peak speed during the second third, and then gradually slow down during the final third.

Like running intervals, the idea of this is to get your body running fast for short periods. Supposedly this helps to raise your "lactate threshold", the pace you can run at where your liver can remove lactate from your bloodstream at around the same rate as it gets created, and thus allows you to run faster in distance races without muscle fatigue.

As well as the tempo run I did a "race pace" run today in Dulwich. Again the idea is to get your body used to running at your planned race pace, albeit for shorter periods. So I did a warm-up lap and then ran 3 laps at 8:45 min/mile pace, which if I can keep that up in the New Forest Half would see me cross the line in 1:54:37, a time I'd be very happy with. I've run that pace in a 10km before so just need to carry on for another 11km !

Since we got back from holiday the weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Well worse for sunbathing and barbecues perhaps but pretty good for distance running. Yesterday's 3.5 laps around Greenwich were mostly in the pouring rain, something I don't mind at all. In fact I think I run better in the rain.

A total of 21.82 miles this week, bringing my total for July to 41.55 and for the year to 556.63.