Training week 51
'Upping the miles'
December 25, 2023
Monday 18 december
Monday was a rest day for me, I ran the fun little Belle Hivernoise trail race the Sunday before and was feeling a little achy. Not a normal Monday for me as you know, I believe in starting the week off right with a hard ass run haha!
Tuesday 19 december
On Tuesday, I was being a lazy motherfucker, I gave in to the little voice in my head that kept me in bed. Crushed it at work to make it up, tho! More discipline needed on Wednesday!
Wednesday 20 december
Started early today with the first run of the week and the first run of my Vo2 phase. I ate 11.8 km for breakfast. It had been a long time since I had been working on my Vo2, and nearly forgot how hard those runs are. This one consisted of 6 blocks of 3 minutes all out. I ran to Eindhoven city since this is my favourite early in the morning, especially being all alone in the city at the start of the day. It really is a great feeling around this festive time.
Thursday 21 december
Man, I was craving trails that day! Especially this one specific one near my house, the locals may know it. It is this trail that runs next to the Dommel. Unfortunately, it was completely covered with river water. Didn’t fancy swimming that morning! So I chose the alternative route that day and downed 14.8 km of trails. Very fun round, and it had been a while since I had run on those trails, good to be back! This run was a bit slower, it was an endurance run.
Friday 22 december
Vo2 run baby! Downed about 13 km in the early Friday morning. Ran this one again on my route to Eindhoven city. Even finished the 200 km monthly goal on that run. I was feeling speedy and well recovered that day, ran a 4:59 km average on a Vo2 run, which is pretty fast including the rest phases. Happy about how this week turned out to be this far!
Saturday 23 december
In a Vo2 phase, it is also important to incorporate long runs. This week it was a 6-hour-long run, on trails! I decided to dedicate this run to the amazing rediscovering the pyrenees. This run I rediscovered the Groote Heide, where I usually train. I ran from my house (Aalst) to Hamont-Achel in Belgium (and back). This is the largest part of the Groote Heide. A truly magical place to run, and that all in my backyard!
This run was a hard one, I was lacking on nutrition, the trails were full of water and the temperature was a bit weird, but enough crying! It was an incredible day out, once again, connecting with nature. The feeling you get after running for 4 hours, it is light again, and you truly feel the power nature gives you. This feeling is something not many people get since we don’t seek for discomfort or do not go out for long times into nature any more.
I ended up running 63 km in 6 hours, not a fast run but a very fun and wet one! Can’t wait to go out again.
Sunday 24 december
Was feeling pretty good after my longer run but decided to give my body a little more rest since some heavy ass weeks are coming up!
Let’s end this week with a great result of 102 km of running! Off to another big week.
Keep Diggin’
To summarise (THe data)
As we can see the data from the rest but also work days:
The zones went up a bit because of the Vo2 max runs. But mainly kept it in zone 2 as we like it!
The final summary of the running week. Ran 4 times, distance of 102 km with a zone 2 average hr for me. Pretty good week!
