Track sessions and ITB niggles

I launched myself back into running two weeks ago, having felt I'd been a bit lax in letting it slip back to only going out for a couple of 5k runs a week. The result was a fun, run-filled week including a sub-20 5k on our regular Tuesday lunchtime run and a track session of Yasso 800s.

This was my first experience of a track session, in fact, I realised it was the first time I'd run round a proper running track! School runs took place either on grass, with whitewashed lane markings, or through woods and fields for cross-country. The track was made out of something similar to the kind of surface they lay down in children's playgrounds these days, adding a real spring to your step. It felt set up for speed and it was definitely the environment to test yourself.

We took off for 5 sets of 800 metres at 6 minute intervals, it being lunchtime on a work day, we couldn't fit in much more than that, nor could we have probably taken it to be fair. The idea with the Yasso 800 is that if you can do 6-10 of them, at an even pace, without going flat out, then the time you complete the lap in minutes and seconds, is a rough indicator as to your potential marathon time in hours and minutes. Of course, it's entirely reliant on you putting in the adequate training for the distance and if you go too flat out, it won't scale up fairly. So, if you complete our laps consistently in 3:00 minutes, then you could theoretically be on for a 3 hour marathon.

Needless to say, I pushed myself, probably a little quicker than I should have and came out as 2:48 on average. I was consistent but I'm not sure I'd have managed another 2-4 laps at that pace. This is significantly inside my marathon PB of 3:51, but it's got me fired up to train for another to at least have a crack at 3:30!

Open water swimming in the River Lyd, Dartmoor, Devon
A chilly 13℃

After a week of getting back into running and enjoying it, I had the realisation I'd pushed myself too hard and that a 20 mile week off the back of running 5-10 on average, was too much. I stumbled into the beginning of the following week with knee trouble. I related the pain back to some trouble I'd had previously with my ITB (Ilio Tibial Band) and I've been RICE-ing, stretching and strengthening it since and the pain seems to be diminishing. Fortunately, I'm many months away from my next event, so a week of just swimming (not in a river this time! see above) to keep up fitness, was no bad thing.

TIP (and note to self): Don't increase pace and volume so quickly. 10% per week, as a guide. Lesson learned...again.