Welcome to my training report for week commencing 5th January 2015. Part of a series of weekly reports, briefly summarising my training during that week and plans for the following week. You will find the vast majority of my workouts published through my Strava, Runkeeper and Movescount accounts. Where applicable I have provided direct links to specific workouts on Strava below, should you wish to see more detail on them. OK so lets get into it…
Last week (commencing 5th January 2015)

Sunrise over Ely, Jan 2015
What a week! It started slowly, really slowly, with a minor chest infection taking hold and stopping training in its tracks. It wasn’t anything major, just enough to get the alarm bells ringing and concern me that I wouldn’t be able to hit my main objective for the week, mainly my series of back to back runs at the weekend.
For my first ultra I took a similar approach to complete my final block of training ahead of the race. The idea is to combine a couple of double run days to produce an accumulative mileage slightly greater than race distance. As I managed to finish 7th in that race, I decided to take the same approach this time, all be it completing this three weeks out from the race to allow more time for recovery.
As my next race will be close to 50 miles, I decided to add an additional run in and set a target of 90km. However at the beginning of the week it was questionable whether I would be able to start. I avoided the pool, as water always tends to make these things worse and didn’t run a mile. I did a couple of easy sessions on the turbo to keep the legs ticking over and also test out my lungs.
Things slowly improved and by Friday I felt like I could run, so I set off on my first of 5 runs. Needless to say it all came together and 50 hours later I was completing my fifth run with a total run mileage of 90.3km for the 5 runs.
So what started badly finished well, here is how the week broke down.
Monday
Feeling rough and a lot of travelling, so only managed a quick 10 minute core and flexibility session.
Tuesday
Endurance turbo session, Ely
Wednesday
Still feeling rough, so just another 20 minute core session. More rest required!
Thursday
Sweet spot turbo session, Ely
Friday
Run 1/5 – Wind then mud Trail Run, Ely
Saturday
Run 2/5 – More wind and mud Trail Run, Ely
Run 3/5 – Cruising in Road Shoes, Ely
Sunday
Run 4/5 – Another morning, another long run, Ely
Run 5/5 – Sprint to the Finish, Ely
Weekly summary:
11 hours and 34 minutes of training, with a TSS of 803.1 and total distance of 145.1km broken down as follows:
- Run: 90.3km in 8h 35m
- Cycle: two turbo sessions, covering 54.8km in 2h 19m
- Swim: None
- Core work: 40 minutes
Plan for next week (commencing 12th January 2015)
So that’s the final batch of running training complete for my next Ultra, with the taper officially starting on Monday 19th January. The aim will be to back down the run mileage to less than 50km per week, while keeping in the intensity. I will also start to build up the bike a little on the turbo and also use the swim as I can.
Finally travel and work commitments means that this week will pretty up in the air, so will need to play it by ear – which is not a bad thing. At this stage my outline plan is as follows
Monday
- Rest day
Tuesday
- Endurance turbo session
Wednesday
- Rest day
- Core session
Thursday
- One hour evening run
Friday
- Ten mile morning run
Saturday
- Short morning run
Sunday
- Long trail run, up to 2 hours
So that’s the plan! Feel free to follow my progress through my Strava, Runkeeper or Movescount accounts. Will be back next week with an update on how it went and plan for the next training block.