"It's a treat being a runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do." - Allan Sillitoe


Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Junk miles?

Yesterday (Monday) - 14.8km general aerobic run. I wore my HR monitor for this one, mainly because I wanted to see what the impact of any residual fatigue from Saturday's hills run would be. I wanted to be aware if my heart rate shot up so that I could back right off.


No such problems though, even though I was a bit stiff. 65 minutes, average HR 158. Average pace 4.23/km


Today (Tuesday) - I had a 24-25km medium long run scheduled with last 8km at a moderate effort. My original plan was to do my loop out to Bardon Park in Maylands and then down the Freeway but once I was out there, I decided that running the last 4km on hills probably wasn't a good idea on legs that hadn't fully recovered from Saturday yet. Basically, I figured I would be adding damage or re-damaging muscles that were trying to repair themsleves and get stronger.


As a result, I ran back on the South Perth side of the river rather than carrying on down the Freeway for a total of 22km in 96 minutes (pace 4.21/km). The pace was possibly a bit quick and I didn't do the last 8km at a moderate effort as I had been running at a moderate effort for a fair part of the run anyway as I was feeling good. I took a km split in East Perth at 4.10/km at a pace I had just worked into after about 11-12 km of running.


I wanted to keep my mileage up this week because it is a key period with only 8 weeks to Rottnest but I am also very keen to have a good run at the City to Surf this Sunday. Sugar is looking to run sub 44 so will be running about 5 secs a km faster than me. I think I have been going out too hard when running 10km races this year so must make sure that I don't go out any quicker than I should as it is probably the cause of my mid race slump down into 3.50/km pace.


Recovery run tomorrow (which I am looking forward to) after which I will make a decision about how far and hard I'll run on Thursday. I have an 18.4km medium long run scheduled which I think is the right distance, just have to watch the pace so that I go into Sunday as fresh as possible.


The latest story about the marathon on the Perth Now website http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25965387-5018846,00.html lists a few of the Ethiopians who will be here. I've googled them and it seems that the elite runners are in the 2.11-2.15 vicinity. I think 2.15 is probably the more likely time for such a hilly course which will still be the fastest marathon ever run in WA (2.16 is the Perth Marathon record). We won't be finished the 12km in time to see the elites finish the marathon but we may just be able to see the sub 3 hour runners coming through (probably not though once you take into account getting through the finish, getting a drink and finding bag etc).

Hope the weather is good and that it is a great day. Getting pretty excited about it.

2 comments:

Sandgroper73 said...

Good to hear you pulled up well. I pulled up suprisingly well too.
I don't think there are junk miles in a marathon training program. Its all about building resistance to fatigue by over-reaching, resting, then over-reaching again.

Your defintelty in a hard place at the moment. A cricial time in your marathon training together with trying to get fast for the 12k. With no real taper I will be interested to see how you go. Last year I did the 12k two weeks before the Freo half with no taper for the 12k. I ran faster (per k) in Fremantle.

DC64 said...

Yeah, it's tough to race at this point in a mara program. The C2S 12 is a great tempo training run if nothing else but I think you'll surprise yourself. BTW, I vote your post on the C2S Half thread the 'post of the year'.... concise and to the point!