4 July 1999

Genevieve

Still haven’t got a job – this is driving me NUTS. My reserves are under pressure, but I’m still expected to front up. I’ve got about 8 CVs being evaluated, and 3 are quite hot, but none of them is a job, you know, with real cash. It is very frustrating and I feel under such pressure.

Never mind, today I ran 6 miles. That’s 10km. My book (Bruce Tulloch, a aery good English middle distance racer from my high school days) says that training at 8min per mile is about right, so my 6 miles at 47:06 is fine – I don’t want to be going any faster. I realised this morning that 8min/ml is about 5min/km, which is the time I’ve always used as a benchmark. What Bruce says, tho, is not to go much faster than this in training.

Ok. What counts is total miles in a week, and the length of the longest run. So I shall do 6ml one day, 10ml another and 4ml another. That’s a total of 20 miles. It’s not really long enough. It should be 30ml. Well, not yet. I’ll have to do a couple of weeks at 6/6/4 before I go to 6/8/4 and then a couple of weeks at that before 6/10/4. I’m loath to do 4 days of running, but I’ll put in an extra day if I feel good – you know, no muscles under pressure or any pains.

Now, he’s also got a thing I haven’t heard of called fartleck. Awful name. It refers to running 50m more or less at a sprint, followed by a 150m trot. Then you do the 50m again and the trot. 4-5 times in the length of one of the training runs. I’m going to do it on my 4ml night. I’ve done one turn so far, and it leaves you a bit the worse for wear, but not injured. That’s why I’ve left a 4ml night in the training sched.

So that’s how it stands at present. Pretty boring, eh? As Caroline said, “You should get a job.”

Puleese

Dad