Monday 1st August - wow, August already!!  3 months to go.  A power plate session again today - one more from this trial program to see if I plan to stick with it.

Tuesday - sprint session.  Sort of.  6 x 800m as fast as I can, which in the afternoon and with only 90 seconds recovery, gets not so very fast despite the amount of effort.  I had thought that last weeks 12 x 400m was a tough session.  It was.  But this one was tougher.  And it makes me very nervous about next weeks' 3 x 1600m session.  It turns out that the longer you are meant to sprint before a breather, the harder it is.  Yikes!

Wednesday - another power plate session, where I actually worked pretty hard!!  My legs were a bit shaky for a few hours afterwards, and the massage I get on the machine is not bad.  Not as effective as yoga or foam roller, but not do I do it as long.

Thursday - 8km at 10km race pace, in which I ran a little further from home than I intended (or rather, I took a longer route home than expectedto avoid needing to stop to cross roads), so I did 12 km in total.  I was a bit wirrued about this session beforehand, thinking it would hurt a fair bit, but it was ok.  I was glad to start jogging again at 8km, and am still getting used to the new gps watch, but it was a good sesion.  The hot shower after all that running in the rain was very good afterwards as well :)

Friday - as usual, my main foam roller session.  Not as bad as it has been, especially given how tight I was at yoga last sunday!

Saturday - 19km run with half on the trail (Pioneer Women's trail) and half on the pavement.   Which meant I did 10 km of uphill.  Some of that got pretty slow - I was meant to be doing planned marathon pace plus 30 - 40 seconds, which gives me 5.30  -5.40 pace.  I think I averaged 6.15 -ish on the way up, but 5.14 on the way down, so the overall average was pretty close (5.45, total time of 1 hour 48 for the 19 km).  My HR averaged 152 - right on the mark, with a max of 167 in some uphill sections, so I wasn't pushing too hard.  I was feeling much less sluggish than last week, despite a late night last night and a busy morning at work - I was almost reluctant to head out, but lunchtime today was always going to be the best time for this this weekend. I was saddened to hear today that one of my dear patients husbands was diagnosed with bowel cancer this week.  More tests are scheduled for next week, with surgery booked for the following week.  Ted and Thea, you are in my thoughts xx

Sunday - sadly, regretfully and most ashamedly too hungover and sick to do yoga :(   Time to do the last 3 months dry, I think.