Week 31

Signed up this week to use the altitude chamber at Valley Fitness at St.Marys. Dd the baseline assessment on Thursday and need to do 4 x 30 mins supervised before I can do sessions above steady state. 

Summary for the week as follows:

Monday - 19.5 km's easy over hills. Included 4 x diagonals early on and 10 x diagonals to finish off.

Tuesday - 18 km's hills fartlek in 74:11. Followed by 1 km jog warm down.

Wednesday - 28 km's solid in 2:00:45 

Thursday - 5 km's including chamber assessment session. Increasing pace and incline in the chamber up to 12% / 12 km/h.

Friday - 15 km's including 12 in the altitude chamber (12 km's progressive effort in the chamber up to 15.5 km's per hour). Tough work in the chamber. Never sweated so much. Enjoyed it. 15.5 km/h feels like 17 or more I estimate.

Saturday - 35 km's easy - 2:36:11 over undulating hills mainly on grass. Last 2 miles in just under 12 mins (marathon paced effort).

Sunday - 10 km's tempo. 15 all up including warm up and warm down. Tempo 36:39. Initial 8 km's at marathon intensity (H/R < 153  - low 3:40's), followed by 2 km's threshold (H/R peaking at 161 - 3:31's). Average H/R - 149

136.5km's for the week.

Week 30

Another solid week of training, but an uncomfortable one at times due to lower back pain. Summary as follows:

Monday: 14 km's - 1:07:46 - Felt very flat

Tuesday: 25 km's - 1:39:30 - City to Surf simulator plus marathon paced training.

1 km easy, 5 km's solid (4:00 pace), 1 km @ 8.5% incline (4.25), 1.5 km's solid (4:00 pace), 500 m @ 8.5% incline @ 4:15 pace, 3 x 200 @ 6.5% over 2 km's, 3 km's slight decline in 9:55, 3 km's approx 4:15's, then solid sub 4's down to M pace with 1 km down to 1/2 marathon pace.

Wednesday: 16 km's - 1:13:52

Thursday: 20 km's - 1:32:03 - 4 x 30 secs (Diagonals) / 6 x 1000 hill circuit (200) / 8 x 30 secs (Diagonals) / 1 x 1000

Solid session. Hill Circuit splits: 3:39 / 3:29 / 3:36 / 3:35 / 3:34 / 3:26. Diagonals ran 90%. 1000 flat - 3:21

Friday: 9.3 km's - Recovery

Saturday: 30 km's - 2:01:21 - Long Run including intervals

3 km's easy. 10 x 1500 (500 recovery jog recovery). 3:42 pace splits. Followed by 5000 (18:33). Solid session. Average H/R 147 (Max 164)

Sunday: 

AM - 12.3 km's - Very flat

PM - 10.4 km's - Very flat

TOTAL - 136.8 km's

Week 29

Nothing flash, just a solid week of base style training:

Monday - 15.5 km's easy

Tuesday - Fartlek - 16 km's all up

- 2 sets of 5 x 1 min (1 min) / 5 x 40 seconds (40 seconds) / 10 x 20 seconds (20 seconds)

Wednesday - 24 km's easy (1 hr 44 mins)

Thursday - Hills / LT - 17 km's all up

- 20 mins hills (4 - 6.5%)  followed by 3 km's progressive paced threshold (3:45/3:30/3:20). Hard work.

Friday - 16 km's easy

Saturday - 10 km undulating XC tempo

- 5 km's warm-up in 20:42

- 10 km's in 38:00

- 3.5 km's jog recovery

Sunday - Easy 2 hrs 15 mins - 29.2 km's

Recent races

6 July - Gold Coast 1/2 Marathon - 76:20

As luck would have it history repeated itself and I was sick for the few days leading up to this race. Same story as last year, but at least I finished this year. No complaints though, happy with the time in the circumstances.

13 July - Sydney Harbour 10 - 35:13

Not a great result, but gave my best. Very heavy legs after moving house during the week. Got boxed in for the first km and off to an extremely slow start (3:39 split). Roughly 3:30's thereafter with a solid finish. Pleased to hold my pace throughout despite running on extremely fatigued legs.

Will now knuckle down and put in some solid training mileage. Initially will concentrate on hills and long runs. Might not do C2S despite having already entered. Will make up my mind in early August. I'm keen to give the body a break after a lot of racing recently.

To be frank, I've raced poorly since my marathon PB in Tokyo. No point maintaining the hectic racing schedule. The body and mind need a break and I simply need to get fresh, stronger and hopefully fitter / faster.

2013 - Week 26

2013 seems to be flying by. It's certainly hardly to believe that we are about to enter the 2nd half of the year. This past week has been all about rain management and trying to stay dry in order to ensure that I don't cop another flu like I did this time last year, which resulted in me not being able to complete the Gold Coast Marathon. Whilst I'm only doing the 1/2 marathon this year I am keen to get there in good health, even if I am a little underdone training wise.

It's been a bit of a mixed bag this past week. A summary of training is as follows:

Monday - 8 km's jogging.

Tuesday - 

Midday - Mona Fartlek - 5.7 km's. It didn't quite go to plan. Whilst I held 3:20 or quicker pace for the reps, I couldn't hold marathon pace (3:45's) for the final few floats (slowed to low 4's). All up 16.9 km's including 10.2 km warm-up & 1 km warm-down.

PM - 5 km's slow jogging

Wednesday - 20.3 km's easy

Thursday - Decreasing intervals - 4.5 km's (5 mins jog recovery) / 3 km's  (3 mins) / 1500 (2 mins) / 1000 (1:40 mins) / 600 (1 min) / 300 (30 secs) / 150. All up 13.5 km's in 50 min's, plus 2 km's warm-up & 1 km warm-down. Very happy with this session. Held 3:20 pace or slightly quicker for each interval.

Friday - 8.5 km's slow jogging

Saturday - 3000 - (1000 recovery) / 2000 (500) / 3 x 1000 (200) / 6 x 30 seconds uphill (90 seconds) - Not a great session. Felt very flat. 3000 - 10:15 / 2000 - 7:00 / 1000's - 3:32/3:36/3:32 / 30 second uphill reps around 3:20-3:30 pace.

Sunday - 21 km's very easy - a little sluggish but relaxed running.

1 week to go now until Gold Coast 1/2 marathon. I've decided to do the exact sessions next week as I did before my 2010 1/2 marathon PB of 75:04. Check the diary earlier and it looks like I'll be doing 4 x 1600 on Tuesday & 3 x 800 on Thursday. Might do 3 light 30 second strides on Saturday as well. 

"Special Block" weekend wrap

Leading up to the Tokyo Marathon in Feb, I trialled some of Renato Carnova's theories. One of his ideas includes a "special block" of back to back hard runs. He prescribes that it should be undertaken on the same day AM & PM. Carnova's approach is also very much event specific. Marathoners will do intervals up to 24 km's in total, 1/2 marathon runners 12-15 km's & 10,000 runners 10-12 km's. These sessions are tough, but the pacing is undertaken at around goal race pace, so despite the longer accumulation of intervals, the sessions are very manageable. The "special block" session is done a few weeks out from race day. The next few days afterwards are very easy.  An example of the marathon  "special block" prescribed for his Kenyan elites is as follows:

AM - 10 km's at 90% of race pace, followed by 20 km's at race pace.

PM - 10 km's at 90% of race pace, followed by 10 x 1000 at race pace (floating 1000 recovery at 90% of race pace).

At the time I decided the above is a big ask for a modest 2:40 marathoner, so I abbreviated the first run to just 15 km's at marathon intensity, but I did do the full second one. It was certainly a character building exercise. I actually felt better during the second hard run. Whilst I wouldn't attribute this one session in isolation to me finally cracking 2:39, I will say that I gained a lot of confidence from it. 

I would say if anybody is interested in Carnova's methods, you need to really understand the complete plan.. In any program, no session alone is important, the combination of many sessions is the key. Carnova is all about building the athlete for the whole event. So marathoners will do a lot of long intervals, but every other week or thereabouts will do solid paced long runs up to 45 km's. might sound hard, but rejuvenation days are plentiful to compliment the full plan.

Anyway, I've digressed. This weekend for me has been about a 1/2 marathon specific modified "special block". Yesterday (3 pm) I did State XC at Willandra (12 km's over challenging sharp undulating terrain). Today (7:30 AM) I did the SMC 10 km race.

Both races went okay. Time  and pacing wasn't really a key for me. I felt a little underdone at Willandra and managed a time of 44:53, for 36th overall and 2nd M45. The downhill as always was my big weakness. Today was a solo effort for an unflattering time of 35:53. Closer to 35 would've been nice, but coming off a hard XC and only 5 hours sleep was less than ideal. The SMC course is on a bike path and includes 1 fairly big hill where I could only manage a 3:43 km, but the rest of the race went okay. Importantly I was running on at the end with a couple of 3:28 closing km's. I don't get many wins, so it was nice to get one today.

The next 3 days will be very easy for me. Will do another run this afternoon and will do my long run probably on Tuesday. Come Thursday, hopefully I'll be refreshed and pumped for some hard shorter reps.

2 weeks now until the Gold Coast 1/2. 

Glow Worm Tunnel Half Marathon

Short Blog.

Enjoyable outing today at Newnes. Hats off to the specialist trail runners. Far too good for me on the technical terrain. If I ever want to get any good at this sport, it is certainly something I am going to need to practice.

Got what I wanted out of the session. Solid run of around 23 km's at a little quicker than marathon intensity. I'd best describe the run for me as a long fartlek session. The first 5 km's was a fairly nice gentle incline. Got technical in places after that. Compulsory walk through the tunnel. A rugged section, and back. Stretched out over the last 5 km's (sub 18). Good to stretch out in places and should be a nice preparation run for the Gold Coast 1/2 in 3 weeks.

Ran to heart rate, keeping it below 160 going up and low to mid 150's coming back. All good fun!

Praise goes out to the organisers. Very well organised and run event. Beautiful location. Great cool conditions and a good turnout.

To sort of quote Alan Jackson's song, I can see why so many road runners have "Gone Country". Well at least hit the bush anyway.