Training Week 17 Recap

Hi all,

These training week recaps are starting to become a bit of an addictive habit. But it's even more problematic if you haven't got any training to report! That's right - I've done absolutely no running this week! :-)

The only recap I have to make is that I'm heading into a new direction in my training. After the Reading Half Marathon, I reflected on the experience and decided that I'd get a lot of benefit if I got a running coach who could put me on the right path. I joined the FP Run Club, which is part of the Full Potential coaching company. It's something I haven't done before or even considered in the past so I feel like I'm gambling or going all in here but, at this stage, anything is worth a try!

On Friday, I had a great conversation with George Anderson, one of the FP Run Club coaches, and in that initial coaching call he gave me a bunch of training ideas which I can incorporate immediately. After answering his questions, and also from checking up on my progress from my past tweets, he believes that I'm comfortable over long distance, but my threshold and strength could be developed further. Therefore he immediately prescribed threshold runs and continuous hills to build these areas up.

George also stressed quality over volume, and in saying that I definitely feel that the volume of running I've been doing lately has curtailed my other activities. Now that is part of being a serious runner, but I have a few other things going on outside of my running. Perhaps if I could cut back on volume and really (and I mean really) make every mile count, then I could strike a decent balance between training and my other activities. When I first started out on this journey, I was prepared to put in the volume. It's natural to commit to something fully when you start out on something new. But after I ran the Reading Half Marathon I concluded that the volume of running I was putting in wasn't bringing the desired results. I also felt that in those 16 weeks I didn't really have a life, and I couldn't really continue doing this for 26 more weeks. This is definitely not being defeatist - it's just a new approach to my training, which I am seriously hoping it will pay off in the long run!

I'm very excited with this new approach laid out before me, and starting this week I will be back into training.

Best,

Aaron