How worried should I be...

..that training seems to have hit a hitch since last Wednesday night? That was a superb run with some of the most aggressive hill racing I have ever achieved- which also left me with tweaked, twanging hamstrings.. Thursday, Friday, I rested them. Saturday, long repetition in Kadoorie that certainly showed I wasn't losing ground, but I can't say for sure advanced my fitness either. Sunday, Monday, nothing. Tuesday, very late, I completed two long repetitions on the bike at a high heart rate and high cadence, pushing the hardest gear: 20 minutes at 100- 120; 5 minutes spinning in the next gear up at the same cadence; then the 20 minutes again. Left me with shaking legs. A good session. Then wednesday night comes around. I wrote in my training book, NO RACING, on account of still worrying about my hamstrings; and the run up to the Peak felt easy at a tempo pace. But Chuck just left me for dead on the rocking, ant-Nazi awesomeness of the HK Contour Trail around to Aberdeen Reservoir road. I couldn't get a rhythm. He accelerated and was beyond of flashlight range in the space of two bends. Which is not to say I wasn't running fast, I'm pretty sure that was one of the faster runs I've ever had, and I caught everyone who'd started 10 minutes ahead by the end of that trail. But it didn't fee like I was eating it up. Plus I was able to smoothly go to 800-pace on Bowen road and 800-pace again into the finish.

So, I'm hitting a plateau? What now? Back off? I'm very worried about losing 'capacity', the big endurance base that I've topped off with the long reps. On the other hand, isn't it time for speed work.

My long-planned race simulation is this weekend- Saturday or Sunday. I've convinced myself that an 18-minute time to the summit of the very last climb will let me know I'm ready. Not making that split will mean, I think, getting off my legs and absolutely killing myself on the bike in long reps. The last Sunday before the race, I'm going to jog from home to halfway the race route, then go at race pace over the second half, to hit the 'top' in as close to 15 minutes as ever I can. That will be the last piece of useful race strategy information I can plug in.

Just typing this has sort of convinced me to shift my training in favour of the bike really from now until the race; and everything now should be at race specific speed and/ or intensity.