There no posts for 5 days then 3 come along at once...

I had planned to be at 11st by the ‘racing season’ or close to it. In other words by early September. At the moment my target date would be 24th October, though that could easily drop by a week or two if this week were to give a larger than normal loss due to water retention and food in transit issues being reversed - which is likely.

I wouldn’t be unhappy with that based on where I am now.

Training wise the groin is niggling and whilst I hope repeating what I’ve done before will fix it it’s certainly a risk and could easily be exposed by tomorrow’s club run – but if I don’t test it I’ll never know.

However, that means I ought to be looking to moderate demands over the next few weeks.

To manage rehabilitation there’s a few measures:

• Wear support shorts for the next month or so
• Do the daily core exercises
• Engage the core muscles throughout runs
• Cut back on long run distance
• Reduce racing/speed work
• Reduce overall mileage & number of runs
• Increase weight training intensity and gym cardio work to offset running reduction
  

That’s all sensible stuff but I need to factor in racing ‘commitments’.

At present I’m due to do Birchwood 10k on the 22nd and then do the Paras 10, a tough 10 miler, 3 weeks later on the 12th September, then there’s another 2 weeks off until the Horsforth 10k. Then there would be another 3 weeks until Turbo X and Wistow 10 on consecutive weekends, Hellrunner 2 weeks later and the Abbey Dash 10k a fortnight further still.

However, if I dropped the Paras 10 the first longer run wouldn’t be until the 17th October meaning I could keep the long run mileage down to 8 miles or so for some time. That would be a big help in managing recovery. It would also mean 5 weeks of no racing after Birchwood and would fit nicely in terms of projected rate of weight loss.

That’s decided then.

However, what isn’t decided is whether the projected weight loss timetable is what I could/should be chasing. Thanks to Alison for putting that idea in the mix.

On the ‘yes’ side is the fact that there is no holiday or other distraction (barring August BH weekend) on the horizon; that it’s a time of year I tend to do well in in terms of weight loss; that reduced running will be more than offset by additional gym work.

On the ‘no’ side would be the less tangible thought that perhaps I ought to be chasing some sort of stability, maybe with a few weeks maintaining weight rather than losing or gaining. I’d expect that to happen in the 8 weeks or so before marathon training started and throughout marathon training but maybe I need to spread that 8 weeks into two 4 week blocks?

What I’m not prepared to do is maintain at current weight. I want to get closer to 11st 7lb at least. So for the next 4 weeks it’s definitely weight loss but do I then have a ‘breather’? Or adopt a 3 weeks on one week off approach kind of like a running plan, maybe with more calories available in cut back weeks? Or would having a pause when within 4 weeks of final goal be crazy and I should keep up the momentum? Or do I just stay flexible and make a call on it depending on how things are a month from now?

On this element I’m really not sure.