The new plan

Fri AM: Run, 5K Slow
Sat AM Bike, 30K @ 25.4kph

Friday was an ugly little run. Insomnia had me reluctant to get out of bed at 5:30 when the alarm went off, but I get up I did for an entirely forgettable 5K that I never got into.

By this morning my neck was feeling just about back to normal, so I felt I was fine for a ride around Homebush Bay. I weaved around basically trying to find an interesting ride without many traffic lights. I noticed that I'd hit 25K in about 61 minutes. I decided to ramp it up a bit and try to lift the average speed above 25kph in the 5 remaining K's. I finished up on 25.4kph, doing the last 5K at 29kph.

I've been doing a bit of research. My running has been a bit off for the last few months. Thinking back, I reckon I peaked at about May, when I ran 49:58 for ten K (incidentally, I think this was the first race where the CR cheersquad showed it's power). Since then, I haven't been able to make a whole lot of progress.

So I have been reading my blog from March, April and May. This serves two purposes - it feeds my ego by artificially lifting the hit counter and it allows me to analyse what I was doing when the training was really working. As the great man himself says, we are all an experiment of one, so let's see what works for moi.

The answer was not what I wanted to hear. Basically I peaked just before I found employment. At my peak, my depression was at it's worst and my training week consisted of four runs (long run, intervals, midweek long and recovery), two swims squads and two rides (50K tri club and 30K widweek).

What I can take from this is that I'm probably not over-training or doing too much cross training. If anything it might be that I'm not getting enough time in bed. Although I wasn't sleeping well, at least I was getting a solid seven hours rest - unemployed people don't get out of bed at four in the morning to train. It might be a good idea to do more sessions after work, as this will probably give me more time for sleep.

From here the plan is to choose a half marathon in February or March and build a program specifically for it. This program will probably consist of six sessions a week: long run, HM pace run, intervals, recovery run, swim & ride. I'll start at a low level (12K long run, 3 or 4 1K intervals) and build towards long runs slightly longer than the race. Starting at a level of less than my current load is a strategy to make sure that I'm over the infections and lethargy that I've been experiencing recently.

The program will start after Christmas. Work has officially gone feral this week, and the next two weeks will be 60 hour epics, including full Saturdays. I'll just fit whatever training I can in.