Weekly News 21st Feb

Ha, so you thought the snow had gone... nope! I woke up this morning (Sunday) to an absolute covering of snow that was a good 6 inches in depth in places. Of course the snow would arrive for my long run day. As a true trooper I headed out the door and covered a marathon over local trails. It was a tough day out... a combination of the snow, rutted and muddy trails, hills, blizzards and the occasional period of reduced visibility when I reached the top of a couple of local climbs. Loved it though. It brought a few memories back from the two days on the Thames Path. This terrain was considerably more challenging. It's rest time now and a very easy week of recovery and adaptation before next Saturdays Coastal Marathon in South Devon.

So has the week gone? Pretty good actually. I came out of last Saturdays 50k at London Ultra feeling very fresh with no leg soreness or obvious fatigue. I did however have that niggling chest and cough that carried through till Wednesday. Training for me this week was very simple. No speed, just easy running.

• Monday - 8 miles
• Tuesday - 13.5 miles
• Wednesday - 13.5 miles
• Thursday - rest
• Friday - am: 12 miles / pm: 5 miles
• Saturday - am: 8 miles tempo on the road / pm: 7.5 miles trail
• Sunday - Trail marathon

Weekly total mileage was 82.5 miles. That has kept my average since Christmas very high. It's all good and apart from a few hiccups, exactly where I wanted to be coming to the end of Feb.

Clients News:

Firstly, BIG BIG 'PB' for Eric Butcher who knocked 6 minutes off his half marathon time by crossing the line in 1:35. Massive improvement for Eric and a really great result. When I started working with Eric it was in principal to get him in better shape for Ironman. However, we realized that we needed to work on his weakness; running. We therefore targeted Florence Marathon for late 2009. He took part in the Thames Path 2 day and now we have 6 mins of his Half Time - Brill!

Rosemarie Maguire was also racing today over the half distance. No PB but that wasn't the target. Rosemarie needed a real confidence boost in the build up to Paris Marathon. Job done!! I think it is fair to say that Rosemarie had lost sight of why she ran... when we discussed that actually it was meant to be fun, her whole mindset changed. Her result today was a great achievement and I know she enjoyed it.

The 'EcoTrail' crew (Cat, Mark, Nick, Ron, Chris) all had big weekends of running as we are now 4 weeks away from the Ecotrail de Paris 80km Trail race. Some sterling efforts with Nick and Ron knocking out 30 miles on Saturday. Cat after her fantastic run at London Ultra did a 4 hour session and she too races South Devon this coming weekend along with Chris and myself. On the subject of Cat. Photo below showing a rather 'diddy' cup for her first place at LU50k.

Everyone else has been clocking up the miles and starting to make those sessions count in prep for Spring races. This coming week sees more of the same and then the following week, myself and 30 others head out to Lanzarote for the 'runwild runfree' training camp. I always love this camp. It is a great mix of quality training, R&R and hopefully an escape to some sun from this continually chilly UK weather. If you are interested, we are taking 'reserve' places for 2011. We normally have 12 apartments so places go quick.

Other News:

I was reading the other day about some guy who is doing the Triathlon of all Triathlons. His name is Dan Martin http://www.danmartinextreme.com/home.php

Dan is planning a Global Triathlon.... just when you think you do extreme sport by running long distances, some guy turns up and plans to:

• Swim 5700km accross the Atlantic
• Cycle accross Europe & Asia
• Run across America

Good luck is all I can say... wow! The cycle & run giving the time and finance I would love a go at BUT swim the Atlantic; no no no!!

Another guy to check out is French Ultra Legend; Serge Girard (Niandis fave) http://www.sergegirard.com/

Serge has done many great things with his feet, Check out his website BUT he is currently attempting to break the world record of 22,581km run in 365 days averaging 61.9km's a day - now that is ULTRA running!!

Catch up next week! Don't forget, let us have your posts ;-)

Ian