2011 review and Houston training update

With Strands closing on 3 December, it hasn't been as easy to pull out my end of year stats as the info I have put into Runningahead.com has been pretty basic. Simple summary is that I did approx 5,840km this year which is an average of 112km week (up from 4,400km in 2010).

I was also a lot more consistent with my running this year, putting together some pretty good streaks either side of the Perth Marathon (after which I took some days off and eased back into it over a few weeks)and introducing doubles as I built up my mileage after the City to Surf. I haven't missed a day since late August and my peak week in my Houston program was 168km.

Lot of good races, new PBs in everything from 5km through to the marathon.  My best races were probably the Bridges 10k (35:54), Perth Marathon (2:49:07), Run for a Reason and Deepwater Point.

Also a few disappointing runs, most notably Lake Joondalup 10k, Run for Gold 10k and the City to Surf but illness and injury all contributed to those.

To update my marathon training, my last two weeks have been 146km and 125km (first week of three week taper).

On 20 December, I did a 5 x 1200m interval session where I averaged 3.33/km pace for each rep and backed that up with 25km @ 4:13/km pace the following morning. I brought my long run forward to Christmas Eve (Saturday) and did 35km with 16km @ marathon pace. Although I drifted off pace slightly from kms 11-15, I still averaged 3:54/km for the 16km in what were pretty warm and humid conditions.

First week of the taper I did a 5 x 800m interval session averaging 3:25/km per rep, a 21km medium long run and a 16km with 8km tempo on Saturday morning before running the New Years Eve 4km race with Sammie in the evening.

The conditions for the tempo run were pretty oppressive, warm and humid. I hit my target pace of 3:45/km for the 8km but it did feel a bit harder than I thought it should. I will put it down to the conditions and mark it down as a pass given that I maintained my record of hitting my target pace for every workout in this marathon training segment.

Sammie had a great run in the NYE 4km, much better than her run at City Beach - 6 minutes better in fact! She struggled a bit in the 2nd km when she got a stitch but was able to negative split the race by about 30sec, finishing just ahead of me in 27:37 so under 7:00/km. We then went to a NYE party where she was dancing and doing cartwheels until about 1am so it was no surprise that she slept until just before 10am this morning.



Sammie digs deep near the finish of her 4km race where she set a new PB of 27:37


10am was when I headed out on my 27km long run this morning. I decided to take the extra few hours sleep over the early cooler start and although it was warm, the conditions weren't too bad for this run which was out along the river on the Rivervale/Ascot side and then over the Tonkin Hwy into Redcliffe before coming back the same way. 27.5km in 2:03 (4:31/km pace).

I am still travelling pretty well with my only injury/niggle concern being some minor plantae fascitis in my right foot. I am managing it with anti inflamms, golf ball massage and staying out of thongs.

This week will be 100km with only real session being 3 x 1600m @ 5km pace on Wednesday and then a 21km medium long run on Sunday which is the day before we fly out.

After saying that I would go to Runningahead.com as my ongoing online running log, I am now experimenting with Strava.com which Simon Elliott put me onto. It is similar to Strands in some respects but I haven't really worked out how to use it yet so am currently still maintaining dual logs.