Catching up post, as promised..

Latter Days of 2008, training log:

31st of December 2008

This was a tempo pace run around the Butlerstown route, up the lane, over to Sugarloaf and back down the hill home. Overall distance 7.4 km, average pace 05:18 minute kilometres.
Total duration 39:05.
Overall the session felt fast but was definitely sub lactate threshold, and therefore not quite race pace.

30th of December 2008

This was the standard Butlerstown route past Sugarloaf at a steady pace. Overall duration 43 minutes for a 7.4 km run.

29th of December 2008

This was a quick opportunity session snatched out of a busy day consisting of two hill climbs up the lane. Overall duration 15 minutes 15 seconds with two prolonged efforts of about five minutes each.

28 of December 2008

Cracking bike ride out with Marco, Rosin and dad at a steady pace for about an hour and a half. Pretty cold day so lots of gear on!

26th of December 2008

Pudding shifter!! On with the trail shoes and out the door to see if we can shift some of that Christmas excess. 8.4 km running at a very handy 6:08 minute kilometre pace. Overall very steady but with two good climbing efforts.

25th of December 2008

Having prepped veggies, stuffed the bird and whacked it in the oven it was off out the door for a handy Christmas run. With not a huge amount of time to spare the run consisted of a brief warmup, tempo pace out to the bottom of Quarry hill, up and down the hill twice and then a fairly brisk jog home.
Total duration 28:10 minutes, 5.1 km, 05:31 minute kilometre pace.
Back in the door, showered and downstairs ready to boil the carrots and based the bird.

24th of December 2008

What will Santa bring me? A big belly if don't do some running!
This was a progression run on the Chavanage route. 20 minutes easy, 11 minutes progression to tempo pace followed by a five-minute cooldown.

Overall distance 5.42 km, overall hard effort.

22nd of December 2008

Having driven back from Farnham in the afternoon I managed to squeeze in a core strength session. 30 minutes core strength working on abdominals and stability.

21st of December 2008

Having done a fairly long and reasonably hard run the day before it was quite nice to do a short endurance run at a steady pace over some nice mixed trials around the back of Farnham.
44:06 minutes duration covering 6.3 km (a lot of exploring and general messing about)

20th of December 2008

14 km run on the North Downs Way with Tom, and my new trail shoes! Slightly faster then normal over distance pace, encouraged by the excellent trials. The North Downs Way run is really quite pleasant.

Overall duration 01:26.

16th of December 2008: Run 6.2 km, duration 34:48 minutes.

This 6 km run was done mainly at over distance pace with two distinct pace pick-ups in the session. Run was up Long Furlong Lane, along the back road and back up Chavanage Lane.

15th of December 2008: Run 6.2 km 38 minutes 37 seconds.

This run was the Chavanage Lane route done at a steady over distance pace. It was pretty nice to get out on a run as I had flown in on the redeye from Orlando that morning. Nice to let the air blow some of the cobwebs out. This was the first run in the new Reebok runners, which proved to be a vast improvement over the previous pair of wave riders! Not only that but they were buy one, get one half price! So I bought a pair of trail shoes as well and they cost the same in dollars as they would in pounds in the UK. Bargain!

14th of December 2008: Gym session at the Marriott Hotel in Orlando.

This was a one hour gym session consisting of a bike and run cardio warmup followed by core strength, chest and arms.

13th of December 2008: Swim session, 30 minutes duration.

Using the short pool in the hotel this swim session consisted of drills and sculling. The focus was on balance in the water and getting a good feel for the initial catch.

12th of December 2008: Run session, 45 minutes duration.

This run session was done using the very nice running route laid out around the Hotel were staying out for the CC J. or. The run was at an easy over distance pace, which was about all I could manage given the state of my chest which was still bunged up with the remnants of this very nasty cold I had. The running route was very nice and the evening sunshine made a very pleasant change from the wall to wall grey that we had in November.

11th of December 2008: Core strength session.

This was a 20 minute core strength session done simply on the Hotel room floor as the early start for the meeting (I mean who starts a meeting at 6:30?) Session focused on abdominal strength.

24th of November 2008: Turbo session, 30 minutes duration.

Turbo session was done at an over distance effort with an emphasis on keeping the cadence at about 90 r.p.m.. This was quite a cold evening which was refreshing.

23rd of November 2008: Run session 8.85 km: duration 55 minutes.

This was a straightforward over distance run at a steady pace around the town using a mix of mainly off-road running. Though the pace was very easy I felt more tired than expected and heart rate was running slightly high. Usually the first sign of an impending cold (which it turned out to be).

Ta-da, but that was 2008! Overall a good year with two peak races, the marathon in the west of Ireland and the off-road triathlon in September down near Farnham.