All In a Days Walk...

• First of all, here is the link for the song of the week http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np-vhj-gN0A And I guess most of you knew that was coming!

Secondly I am very happy to report back from my hardest week of training I have ever done. No injuries, no blisters and no problems. Monday to today inclusive a grand total of 102.77 miles walked. YES, I did it, I am over the moon. My week went something like this;

• Mon. 21st May, 2 walks, one with a client 1.55 and then my long one of 27.54 miles. Again, times and speeds are not important here I am really trying to stay focused to the distance and just time walking now.
• Tue. 22nd May, 14.20 miles, this walk took in more hills than the walk yesterday.
• Wed. 23rd May, 3 walks. One with a client on the prom - 1.92 miles, one of 5.14 and one last one of 5.80 miles. I had no time for a long walk so had to string 3 walks in for the distance I wanted. Total 12.86.
• Thurs. 24th May, 2h 35 mins on Hills!!! A total of exactly 14 miles. This was a day from hell. I met Al and we did my hill route around Saddlestone. As you know by now we start at the STOP sign at the bottom of the road and do hill repeats on each hill. As there are 5 seperate roads/hills we did each hill 4 times. We were both very tired at the end of it!
• Fri & Saturday no training, rest days.
• Sunday woke up with 70.20 miles under my belt and was determined to get to the magical 100 mile mark. I got up at 04.50h and Al met me at my house for 05.30h. We set off down Saddle Road, made our way to the QB took a left and did the Parish Walk proper to Peel touching all the church gates, 32.57 miles in total (small cooldown after). Our reasons for setting away so early, first I wanted to spend some time with my children so we went earlier, secondly weather reports were quite poor for the afternoon so we decided this start time would suite both of us (you think I am mad? Al was linesman for a cup game in the afternoon after our walk)!

Today I am writing this and I feel great. No aches or pains, nothing. It is like I didn't do the walk yesterday! I cannot believe that I would be writing this following such a hard session. I can only assume that all the months of hard training have finally paid of. I remember the vast majority of the damage I did last year was on the first 25 miles, so for me to have done the Peel walk so well is a massive boost for me now. In January when I originally wrote my training program out I was aware of the amount of walking I had set myself to do. I am glad it is now over and it has been very hard to do, especially on cold and wet winter nights when the draw of a nice brew and the warmth of a fire are beckonning. Now its time to taper my training down and start to plan the final details for the big day. This week will go something like this.

• Monday playing football for Braddan Legends against The Wrinklies!
• Tue. No training.
• Wed. An hours walk on the fun run route, very easy and no pace, just to get the legs going again.
• Thursday, hopefully a speed session for an hour or so with the great Robbie at the NSC.
• Friday a medium paced 2 hour walk. Sat. & Sun. no training.

As you can see I will be lucky to do 25 miles this week so for me it will be a perfect post Peel week. The week after next I intend to add in some cross training at the gym coupled with some cycling. Depending on how all this goes my aim for 3 weeks time are a couple of easy swim sessions and a small walk. Then it will be Carb. loading week!!! Bring on Da Pasta! Again nearer the time I will go a little more in depth about why I am doing things.

So that was my week. As you can imagine I have had a lot of time to think about all sorts of things whilst out walking. My main concerns have been about the many different ways there are to doing structured training programs for events like this one. A fascinating topic with I feel no definning answer. The reason I say this is simple, we are all individual and what may work for one person may not work as well for another. A good example may be myself. My training has all been based on what I consider to be mainly my weaknesses in the race last year. The structure of my program has been from tried and approved training techniques used by coaches world wide. Ie speed sessions, endurance sessions, strength sessions, fartlek and hill repeats of one sort or another. This all put together will hopefully, all being well, give me  the improvement I hope to get in the race this year. That said, a really hot day and my 22 and a half hours from last year may turn out to be a really good time! I am not too worried now. I feel I have done the training and am still having to hope for the right conditions and everything to gel on the day. If I have a really bad race and don't finish this year I will be upset but it wont be from lack of trying. I am going to give it 110%. 

I feel like I have had an insight into the rigourous type of training routines the top men and women in this sport have to go through year round to achieve the remarkable success and times they continue to get. I have to be honest here but I doubt I could put myself through this type of regime again. It has been so hard to do and I have nothing but respect for the top people in this sport. It is a passion and dedication that they seem to live by, for me I feel it is more like a book I can pick up and put down again when I am finished with. I hope it all comes together on the day, and if it doesn't?.....Well, there is always next year!!!