back In at the deep end

After last week’s go again week I had chatted to Paul about the fact I have a family holiday coming up and in the two weeks leading up to it I am keen to push the envelope and shock the system back into running hard and fast. He delivered on that ask!

Intervals on a Monday. That’s how the week started. And that was after intervals on Sunday. No matter where you are, unless in the vacuum of space, you probably heard the splash of me bombing back into the deep-end, almost like Kevin McAllister in Home Alone 2. But at least my shorts stayed on, Just.

My two key sessions for the week, in terms of testing current and relative fitness, was a long run on Thursday and then a visit to Palacerigg Parkrun on Saturday.

Thursday’s long run was a doozy. And if you have been listening to the Pyllon Ultra Podcast series where we have been talking about the ATAK method then it is fair to say I got a massive does of A for Awareness. The session on Thursday was 10k fast, 1k regroup, 10k fast, 1k regroup, 10k fast and then 1k as fast as I had left. If this session was on the Burger King website it’d definitely be rated as “meaty”.

I was a tad apprehensive about it. I wasn’t sure I could run fast for that long. I wasn’t sure my knee would hold up. I wasn’t sure what pace to aim for. At full fitness I would be looking to run close to marathon pace for the 10k pick-ups. That would be foolish at this stage. So, I wanted to average around my marathon pace target +15s per mile. The great news is I did that. The bad news? Well, let’s just say my pacing was erratic! First 10k was 10s faster than I planned, 2nd one bang on and last one 10s slower. The fallacies of average in a nutshell. I was constructing some excuses as to why I backed off the last 10k and ran it easy. But lying to yourself in training is not a good place to be. With ATAK we start with awareness, and by removing myself from just the numbers I am super-delighted to have done this standard of session this far out and in this proximity to recent niggles. Instead of being down about the drift in pace I re-learnt about smart pacing, resilience and the importance of attrition in training. And I took this into the Parkrun.

After a LOT of stretching and mobility I was set to go to Palacerigg Parkrun on Saturday morning. I will be doing a fair bit of short racing to practice race craft. As was evidenced in my long tempo, pace control is critical. Getting out into race conditions, even at Parkrun, will be a key part of my strategy ahead of Toronto.

My career Parkruns to date total a massive 8 (eight). But, I had done Palacerigg twice before. It is the closest Parkrun to my home and and is rated 55th hardest of the 750 in the UK. The elevation may seem modest, and it is, however the undulations are the kind of sharp ones that zap momentum, rhythm and pace. It is also 95% trail. That said, there was still a smattering of the Nike super shoes on the start line. I took nearly a full minute off of my last appearance and 30 seconds off of my course PB. Being first finisher was pleasing, giving me a 100% win rate at the course, but the real gold is a strong run, solid pacing and the feeling of burning at the back of my throat as I pushed through the last 500 metres.

That’s a feeling I am going to be embracing over the coming weeks and months!

(Written by James Stewart)

This is the Inside > Out blog by the Pyllon Coaching Team, our way of inviting you to have a look under the hood of our thriving coaching team. We are humans first, athletes second, and sometimes that means we have to deal with the same kind of challenges, setbacks, worries, and doubts as everyone else.

In this blog we will share some of our own personal journeys as we to strive for success in both our running and coaching pursuits.

James Stewart (JS) is journaling his way to the Toronto Marathon in October 2023. This is week 2. So please follow along.