Ultra training

Saturday 28th February
RPM and body pump in the morning. The first class was a mistake - I intended to do body attack, purely because I fancied doing something different, but I was put off by someone before going in how told me it has quite a high impact on the knees. So as I was at the gym I decided to do RPM instead. I didn't go mad with the resistance or pedalling, but should really have given my legs a rest before my long run tomorrow.

Sunday 1st March
Time to really crank up the mileage if I want to do a 33-mile "Ultra" marathon in May (I have sent my entry form off for the Marlborough Downs challenge) so the plan was to do an hour on the treadmill followed by 20 miles outside.

It didn't quite pan out as planned, I did slightly more than an hour on the treadmill - 12k to be precise, but this was only because I hit the emergency stop button by accident at 7.8k! So rounded it up to 12k - 7.5 miles.

Headed outside and wasn't sure which route to take, so decided to play it by ear a bit. In the end I did the Blagrove route then headed up the railway path, along the canal, across the motorway, then cut back on myself and did the Elcombe route. When I got through Wroughton I turned up Pipers Way and then headed down Marlborough Road and then along Queens Drive and back through town to the gym.

I've no idea how far this was, but I was out on my feet for exactly 2hrs 50 mins. Admittedly most of it was a bit of a plod and there were some walk breaks (including when I saw an old friend, Wally, who I hadn't seen for a few years) but I followed it up with a mile on the treadmill (more of a mental exercise than anything) so all told I did four hours of running. It would have been comfortably over 20 miles and the most important thing was I get used to being on my feet for this length of time.