Where'd that rain come from?

Driving to work this morning, the weather report said it was supposed to be sunny today. Looking at the overcast sky I thought otherwise, and now a few hours later it's pouring!

Lucky we managed to get an awesome speed session in nice and early! The group that I run with on a friday is great. I'm the slowest out of them, but it's good motivation for me! I usually end up slightly modifying my sets so that everyone doesn't need to wait for me for too long at the end, but I feel like I need to start stepping up a bit and completing the full session.

This morning we planned to do 4x 1km with 1 min recovery, followed by 4x 500m with 30 sec recovery. I dropped it back to 3x 1km, followed by 5x 500m. My speed still isn't quite where I want it, but it's improving quickly! Plus I didn't slow down. The last 500m that I did was after a slightly longer rest, and it was quicker and easier than the rest.

I think there's a very fine line between optimal training and injury as a runner. I always err on the side of caution, but I think I need to start pushing through a little bit more? I've realised that my sore calf wasn't an injury, and it's now settled down again, but did I need to take the extra rest days?

I've been on a program until recently, and now I'm trying to work out what actually suits me best. I think I need to increase my crosstraining (from zero to occasional!) and build up the weekly kilometers again. I was averaging 60km per week before holidays, and I'd like to be up to 80km by the end of the year.

I think my regular week will look something like this:

Monday: rest/crosstrain
Tuesday: speed
Wednesday: med/long run (around 12-15km depending how I'm feeling, and preferably on trails))
Thursday: rest/crosstrain
Friday: speed
Saturday: parkrun 5km (as a tempo, not a race)
Sunday: long run (initially 20km, building up to 25km)

That adds up to around 67km, so to get to 80 I'll most likely need to add in another run, and maybe extend my warmups/warmdowns.

This is a slightly boring, long post. Oops! At least is gives me some accountability for my plans! Weeks that I race will need to be different but at least if there's a basic plan I can adjust as necessary.