Weekly Summary - 3 weeks to go

My first full week since illness. The key session was probably Saturday with the marathon pace miles in the middle of the long run. It was a hot day (for April) and most of the 'effort' miles were either into a fresh breeze or slightly uphill.My HR hovered around 144bpm 83%MaxHR with no loss of pace, although the last 2 miles were out of the breeze. It looks like my aerobic conditioning may have recovered, judging from the steady HR - good news! I was rather hot - 19deg with bright sunshine - so to be within 10secs of the magic 8:15/mile (see pacing post) is more good news I think. Once again I hit the 10-mile mark inside my 10-mile PB time - this time by over 2 minutes!

Another interesting session was on Thursday, when I ran the first of our club handicap races as part of a tempo session - 3.65 miles of effort as part of a 9 mile run. I ran the mixture of road, grass, footbridges and kissing-gates in 29:25 - only 10 secs off my PB. I was generally running at around half marathon pace or slower, apart from a slight burst on the last half mile, so another sign of my improvements since last year.

Tapering now, but still a mile-reps interval session to come and a slightly reduced distance marathon pace run before my last weekend long slow run of somewhere between 12 and 15 easy miles - to be decided.

Day	Miles	a.m.	p.m.	Comment
Monday	7	Easy recovery 71%maxHR		Nice day!
Tuesday	10		Drift test. Marathon pace
Wednesday	5 (+10 cycle)	Cycle to work	Easy recovery 69%MaxHR	Car in for MOT - felt the extra 10 miles cycling even though v easy!
Thursday	8.9		Tempo run, middle 3.65 miles ave 144bpm 83%MaxHR	Club handicap race - missed PB by 10secs even though running at half mara pace
Friday	6	Very easy 66%MaxHR
Saturday	16	incl 8 miles at marathon effort		Bit tired. Hot day!
Sunday	Rest
Total	52.9 miles