Quote from the coach, “So I dropped one session this week to try to lighten things up for you”. Great! But then the end of the week rolls around and I realise that I have been deceived into running more kms than last week, over only four days.. what!
Four days a week
I was surprised to hit 66.5km across only four days of running. I guess all the sessions are big ones, and the Sunday long run is getting longer.
The next few weeks we are now going to continue with the four days a week. Feels a little weird dropping from 5 days to 4 days, but it’s about keeping the fatigue under control leading up to the half marathon while still getting in the key workouts. At this point we don’t want to risk heading into Gold Coast half marathon carrying too much fatigue so weekly mileage needs to stay under 70km a week.
Some people might say well just reduce the 5th run to an easy 5km or something. But a short easy run like that doesn’t serve any purpose. Each run should have a purpose not just running for the sake of it.
After the half marathon will be a good period to move back to 5 days and attempt pushing up the mileage.
This week
This was the third week of doing the 4 x 2km session and I finally felt like I did it well. The 8:40 target time had been slightly out of reach, but this time I did 8:42, 8:42, 8:41, 8:40 which I was really happy with.
Thursday was a shocker. For whatever reason it just felt very hard, effort level much higher than usual for these paces. Unfortunately I was really struggling through the 4:38 pace effort and had dropped off to 4:45 pace for a couple of kms with much higher than usual heart rate and effort so I decided to pull the pin.
Saturday thankfully my running felt good again. My 18 min threshold was good. Followed by 4 x 3:00 hill reps which were bloody hard as expected. But I seemed to recover much better from them the next day compared to last time.
Sunday was a big run 130 minutes with the last 30 minutes at 4:38 pace. The first 100 minutes the pace was kept easy but did have it’s challenges with the usual great circle drive hill climb.
I was very glad to have Sharon with me for the last 30 minute effort – I’m not sure I would have completed it otherwise. It’s tough both mentally and physically to run that kind of effort at the end of a long run. I think we did really well maintaining 4:42/km pace on what wasn’t the easiest terrain.
Running
| Day | Details |
|---|---|
| Mon | Rest |
| Tue | 2km warm up Drills and strides 4x2km at 8.40 with 400jog recovery (8:42, 8:42, 8:41, 8:40) 2km cool down |
| Wed | Rest |
| Thu | 5km @ 4.50, 10km @ 4.38 (5km 4:49/km 164bpm, 7.2km 4:41/km 171bpm, 2.5km jog 5:52/km 140bpm) |
| Fri | Rest |
| Sat | 2km warm up 18 min threshold @ 4:30 (4:27/km, 171bpm) 930m jog to hill 4 x 3:00 hill reps 3.4km cool down |
| Sun | You Yangs 130 last 30mins 4.38-4.40 (first 100 mins 5:44/km 144bpm, last 30 mins 4:42/km 163bpm) |
1%-ers
| Day | Details |
|---|---|
| Mon | |
| Tue | Foot/calf exercises and foam rolling (25 mins) |
| Wed | |
| Thu | Remedial massage (60 mins) |
| Fri | Lower back/hip stability exercises (20 mins) |
| Sat | Foam rolling (30 mins) |
| Sun | Cold bath (15 mins) |
Also I have been experimenting with doing 5BX this week. I feel like I need to get some basic upper body and core strength work in and this sort of hits the mark for something simple to do each morning that only takes a few minutes and isn’t very taxing.
Coming up
- 10 June – Ben and Sharon’s Fun Run (15km time trial)
- 17 June – Bundoora Cross Country (10km)
- 2 July – Gold Coast Half Marathon
- 8 July – Sandown Road Relays (6.2km)
- 16 July – Game of Thrones Season 7
- 16 July – Albert Park Road Race (10km)
Summary
| Week | Phase | Runs | Km | Hrs | TSS | Fitness | Fatigue | Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36 | MARATHON | 4 | 59.2 | 5:17 | 426 | 61 | 73 ↑ | 23 ↑ |
| 35 | Taper | 4 | 41 | 3:32 | 314 | 61 ↓ | 55 ↓ | -1 ↓ |
| 34 | Marathon | 4 | 62.1 | 5:26 | 450 | 64 | 76 ↓ | 6 ↑ |
| 33 | Marathon | 4 | 63.4 | 5:34 | 467 | 64 ↑ | 82 | 2 ↓ |
| 32 | Marathon | 5 | 70.7 | 6:23 | 502 | 63 ↑ | 82 ↑ | 7 ↓ |
| 31 | Marathon | 4 | 48.4 | 4:13 | 367 | 61 ↑ | 68 ↓ | 8 ↑ |
| 30 | Marathon | 4 | 63.9 | 5:43 | 462.1 | 62.7 ↑ | 78.3 ↑ | 4.0 ↑ |
| 29 | Marathon / recovery | 4 | 58.4 | 5:06 | 426.2 | 61.8 ↑ | 77.3 ↓ | -0.6 ↓ |
| 28 | Marathon | 4 | 66.5 | 6:06 | 486.1 | 61.6 ↑ | 82.5 ↑ | 3.6 ↑ |
| 27 | Marathon | 4 | 66.5 | 5:50 | 482.1 | 60.1 ↑ | 79 ↑ | 0.5 ↓ |
| 26 | Recovery | 4 | 54.3 | 4:54 | 386.3 | 58.1 ↓ | 69.5 ↓ | 3.5 ↑ |
| 25 | Build | 5 | 64.9 | 5:51 | 454.6 | 58.3 ↑ | 72.0 ↑ | -2.3 ↓ |
| 24 | Build | 5 | 64.5 | 5:41 | 482.6 | 56.8 ↑ | 64.6 ↑ | 3.1 ↓ |
| 23 | Build | 4 | 46.9 | 4:07 | 340.5 | 54.9 ↓ | 51.8 ↓ | 7.3 ↓ |
| 22 | Build | 4 | 43.6 | 3:55 | 307.3 | 55.9 ↓ | 52.1 ↓ | 11.1 ↓ |
| 21 | Half Marathon | 4 | 41.8 | 3:31 | 311.1 | 58.0 ↓ | 55.0 ↑ | 20.5 ↑ |
| 20 | Taper for HM | 4 | 37.5 | 3:10 | 304.9 | 60.1 ↓ | 52.4 ↓ | 14.6 ↑ |
| 19 | Recovery | 3 | 41.6 | 3:39 | 302.6 | 63.0 ↓ | 59.8 ↓ | 10.5 ↑ |
| 18 | Half / Marathon | 5 | 71.8 | 6:03 | 541.4 | 66.6 ↑ | 86.0 ↑ | -7.4 ↓ |
| 17 | Half / Marathon | 4 | 66.5 | 5:47 | 490.2 | 64.3 ↑ | 79.7 ↑ | -3.2 ↑ |
| 16 | Half / Marathon | 5 | 64.4 | 5:32 | 479.2 | 62.9 ↑ | 76.0 ↓ | -7.7 ↑ |
| 15 | Half / Marathon | 5 | 71.4 | 6:09 | 527.1 | 61.7 ↑ | 77.8 ↑ | -7.8 ↓ |
| 14 | Speed / Half | 5 | 63.8 | 5:38 | 460.2 | 59.0 ↑ | 70.3 ↑ | -1.0 ↓ |
| 13 | Speed / Half | 5 | 59.1 | 5:20 | 419.4 | 57.5 ↑ | 60.9 ↑ | -3.7 ↓ |
| 12 | Recovery | 4 | 39.1 | 3:21 | 288.2 | 56.9 ↓ | 54.8 ↓ | 6.5 ↑ |
| 11 | Speed | 5 | 59.1 | 5:14 | 421.8 | 59.6 ↑ | 70.4 ↓ | 1.7 ↑ |
| 10 | Speed | 5 | 61.6 | 5:23 | 460.3 | 59.3 ↑ | 71.8 ↑ | -1.9 ↓ |
| 9 | Speed | 5 | 58.0 | 5:06 | 436.1 | 57.9 ↑ | 67.8 ↑ | 3.4 ↑ |
| 8 | Recovery | 5 | 49.7 | 4:18 | 395.8 | 56.8 | 61.5 ↓ | -1.3 ↓ |
| 7 | Base | 5 | 54.2 | 4:44 | 417.0 | 56.8 ↑ | 64.4 ↑ | 2.3 ↑ |
| 6 | Base | 5 | 51.3 | 4:33 | 392.3 | 56.1 ↑ | 61.0 ↓ | 1.5 ↓ |
| 5 | Base | 5 | 52.5 | 4:32 | 421.5 | 55.9 ↑ | 61.7 ↑ | 2.2 ↓ |
| 4 | Recovery | 5 | 46.5 | 4:03 | 353.7 | 55.0 ↓ | 54.5 ↓ | 4.4 ↑ |
| 3 | Base | 5 | 50.4 | 4:22 | 381.7 | 55.7 ↓ | 57.1 ↓ | 1.2 ↓ |
| 2 | Base | 5 | 50.2 | 4:23 | 381.2 | 55.9 ↓ | 57.4 ↑ | 5.9 ↓ |
| 1 | Base | 5 | 43.9 | 3:52 | 334.3 | 56.0 | 53.4 | 8.3 |
I can only laugh Ben – Chelsea could sell snow to the Eskimos. I often find I’ve been tricked by her after the fact.
Great running this week – especially yesterday 🙂
LOL