WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE - DAY 9

I do like Mondays. Mondays are very much about swimming in our household. TJ started his swimming lessons today and JT has moved up into the "big" group ( at the deep end). I also get to have my sessions as we started back this evening after the Xmas break. I really do enjoy these "Elite training" sessions as they are named, Mrs D and I did have a giggle initially when we thought of ourselves as elite!! There are certainly some amazing swimmers within the sessions and we are appropriately put into lanes of ability. I am hovering around the middle section right now, but learnt an awful lot over the first term and look forward to my session weekly.
It also works perfectly into my marathon training. My long runs will almost always be a Sunday, therefore a Monday swim helps to give my legs a lovely non-impact workout. Just what a sports masseur would prescribe!

Tonight's session was a great start. 1600m freestyle, with 50m and 100m intervals thrown in after a warm up and cool down. We were also given some help with our strokes, mine was to reach further out before bringing my arm back in, giving me more power from the front. We did 200m pulls and 200m kicking. Kicking is not mt forte but I have to say I have improved immensely since attending these sessions.

A great way to end a Monday evening, I always sleep so well on a Monday night - I wonder why??!!!

DAY 5 - RELAY RACING

I attended my club's Thursday night session this evening as I intend to work on my technique in the months leading up to the marathon and this is precisely what the club do on a Thursday - technical sessions.
You never know what you are going to get, could be tempo run, fartlek training, intervals or hill reps. The only consistent here is that you know you will be working outside your comfort zone and you will feel it!!!
That said I am very much up for increasing my strength and am looking at increasing my pace through these sessions. The proof is in the pudding really, since I started with the club I have managed to get a PB in a 10K race with an average 8.16 min per mile pace which I was very happy with. If I can see results why wouldn't I keep on going back for more? According to my bible Garmin my max pace was 5.21, yes, really feels like it as well!!

Tonight was an interval session in relay pairs. We paired up with similar paced runners and took to the streets around Flexbury. The session consisted of us doing 5 laps of just over 800m in distance to then tag our team mate, who would in turn then run their leg of the same route. Laps 1-3 were intended to be moderate to hard with laps 4 -5 to be an all out push.

Well as I learnt tonight, if you go out too fast on laps 1-3 you crash and almost burn on laps 4-5. Yeah I know the hare and the tortoise fable, but I'm certainly no hare and I can't be accused of being a tortoise either. But yes, I should have paced myself a little better perhaps for sure. All lessons to take with me for next time.

After having a little chat with myself I know where I went wrong and how I can improve next time, I believe this is what it is all about at the end of the day. Learning how my body will cope and how I can best set it up for success is half the battle I think. So lessons learnt from tonight and I expect some sore calves in the morning but then I do have a wonderful sports massage booked so all is going to be good in the world as of lunchtime tomorrow.

Hope you fellow Janathoners are enjoying your experiences, so good to read all the tweets and comments. We can do it!! Jog, blogged and logged. That's me for today, I'm pooped!!