Well, I ended up easing off quite a bit more than I planned. A combination of a weekend away with friends, followed by a trip interstate to see my client, then picking up a head cold from the kids, meant that my mileage dropped right off over the past two weeks, running only 37 & 28 kilometres.
Ultimately though, it seems like this has been a blessing in disguise, allowing my body to freshen right up. So much so, that I might make this a regular thing. Maybe not two weeks, but a week of low mileage every 4 weeks or so could work well.
When I resumed my normal program this week, I easily broke my 14km course record yesterday, running it in 1:09:54, my best by over two minutes. And today I ran a little over 18km at 4:52 pace, so I am definitely getting quicker.
I need to rein myself in a bit though. I have a 20km on Saturday, and a 32km on Sunday to get through, so tomorrow's 14km will be run at easy pace instead of tempo.
After 313k in 3 weeks, my body was screaming ENOUGH at the end of my 28k run on Sunday. The last 6k were very slow and pushed my average pace out to 6:11 which was nearly a minute per km slower than my 24k run the day before where I felt like I was doing it easily.
I also pulled up quite sore, with some pain in my hip flexor, which took a couple of days to disappear. I still went out for an easy 10k on Monday, but took yesterday off, and will have an easier week than planned. Instead of 112k, I will drop back to about 95k, and ease the tempo a bit to give myself a rest.
The weather is also looking a bit nasty for the rest of the week, so it may even end up being less than that, with some time indoors on the treadmill.
