Where's spring?

It was Jo's turn to be unable to train for most of this week. She came down with a cold on Wednesday, hence was unable to train on Wednesday or Thursday. My Wednesday run was initially quite hard, mentally. Getting up before 6am and getting out there on your own and in the freezing cold was tough, but once I got going I quite enjoyed it.

Thursday on the other hand was a whole new kettle of fish - man it was tough. I try to do a hill session on Thursdays, but since there are very few hills in London I'm forced to run on the treadmill with an incline setting. The problem is that my gym, Fitness First, don't know the meaning of ventilation/air conditioning. It is very hot in my gym - I'd guess it's in the high 20s, and to make matters even worse it's also very humid. The body cools itself by sweating - the sweat needs to evaporate in order to cool the skin and therefore the blood. The more moisture in the air then the harder it is for the sweat to evaporate. The more the body struggles to cool itself the more it sweats. The more it sweats the thicker the blood gets and the harder the heart has to pump. I had to keep slowing down in order to keep my heart rate within the training zone (see training plan). In the end (after 4km) I had to reduce the incline to 4% from 6% because I was almost going backwards :(

So I don't think I'll do those hill sessions in the gym anymore, not for a while at least, as I think they are too hard for the current phase in our training.

Jo had recovered enough to run with me on Sunday, for our usual run to Greenwich Park. We decided that instead of running back from Greenwich we would do more loops in the park and then get the Tube back home. Although I found the run easy, Jo struggled. She was, I think, still dehydrated because of her cold earlier in the week - and the wine we had on Friday night with friends Julie and Bob :( On top of this she wasn't feeling well before the run. So Jo struggled to keep her heart rate down - it was in the mid 140s when mine was still below 130 (I felt very relaxed!). When we did the laps around Greenwich Park she struggled even more; the laps were pretty boring and so Jo had nothing to distract her from her discomfort which just made her more tense and therefore compounded the issue. To be honest runs like these are good training, it's mental strength training which is going to be important for the TransRockies Run, so it was good that Jo battled through and even had a smile at the end. The journey home on the tube wasn't great as we became very cold and Jo had to have a few minutes sitting on the floor to stop herself being sick. She was pretty knackered after that run. Don't think we'll take a Tube home in the near future; not until it gets a lot warmer.

So all in all it wasn't a bad week, although Jo wasn't well she battled through Sunday's run and gained some (more) mental toughness, and I was able to run on Sunday without my ankle support. The ankle still hurts a little but it's getting better despite the lack of rest :)

Moving on...I've noticed (via Googles Analytics) that we have quite a few readers from the USA, from all four corners of the country (not Alaska or Hawaii, yet). So please keep reading and post a comment or two (it would make my day). Also please spread the word - the more readers the better :)