Back to basics

This is my first week on my training plan as I prepare for a 65km ultra on November 18th.  My coaches instructions were simple - run on feel.  36 mins on Tuesday, 56 mins on Thursday, 1hr 24 min on Saturday and 51 minutes today.  On Thursday’s run I decided to push myself to see how my recovery was going - I got 3 peak performances related to my heart rate over 5/10 and 20 mins on that run. That’s a good start I thought.
On Saturday I was running on my own at Chatelherault and decided again to see what would happen if I pushed the pace.  Normally I aim to get around in 45 mins which is a reasonable pace if doing 2 laps.  I finished the first lap in 42 minutes, my quickest time ever so as I started the second lap thinking this was going to be tough.  Much to my surprise I repeated the 42 min lap.  For me that’s a big achievement especially as I am “recovering from the exertion of my ultra.
I had a massage during the week and my Achilles on both legs are tight as is my groin.  It’s vital that I make sure this doesn’t get worse so I have a massage tomorrow and when I can get booked in, will have my physio check me out.  Running faster means I have increased my stride length by 7 cm so perhaps this is causing the groin problem or it may be the fatigue from 4 weeks ago.
Today I had a 10km to run and the target time set was challenging.  I didn’t look at my Garmin for the first 7km and then checked to see how I was doing.  I needed to pick the pace up slightly which I did and got in just under the target setting a new threshold target.  It will be interesting to see how this continues.  If I can stay injury free and keep up this consistent training I might surprise myself on Nov 18th.