Last week was fun and intense and I got some thinking to do in order to balance the benefits of an additional peak week vs the benefits of a good taper.
Normally I use a basic weekly schedule based on the intensity of the different training session that is maintainable year round. While it features 6 to 7 days of running a week, it has 3 main training sessions (Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday) on the other days I do easy runs (zone 1 / zone 2).
The easy run on Monday is there to offset the damage from the Sunday long run and helps to prepare for the speed work on Tuesdays!
I decided to do 2 seperate recovery runs today - one at 09:00 and one in the evening around 18:00. That way I was able to make some zone 1 volume today and incorporate 3 strides in the evening workout (200m, 300m, 200m)
My morning run
Filled with sunshine but still at 0C, run went smooth at steady pace. Stayed below 06:00 / km in zone 1.
Evening run
There was still some time left so I decided to do another fun recovery run. I stayed most of the time in zone 1 and did 3 short strides with my focus on getting back in zone 1 as fast as possible , so that during a race a climb won’t knock all my breath out at once.
On the balance between peak week and taper:
I consider doing peak until thursday and start the taper on Friday giving me little over 2 weeks to recover!
Happy running!
