"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, October 16, 2012

Last few weeks of Melbourne marathon training.

Week 14 - Only 66.5km this week due a couple of days off with illness, then easy days leading up to the Freo 10km.  Ran 36:29 for 15th place.  Pretty happy with this as a good solid effort considering I had bronchitis earlier in the week and had just finished a course of antibiotics on the day before the race.

Went out as I intended to run but couldn't hold the pace.  Only a couple of really disappointing kms.

Did the same as I did at City to Surf with my watch in that after about 4 km I just had it on clock time rather than race time and pace etc so instead of looking all the time the only feedback I got was at each auto lap km.  Benefit of this is that I could just concentrate on racing.

I would have been very happy to go under 36mins so to be only 28 secs off that by my watch was a fair effort in the circumstances.

Other runs for the week were a bridges loop on Thursday, three bridges on Friday and a shakeout run with strides on the Saturday

Week 15 (126km)  - started the week with a medium long run to make up for not doing a long run on the weekend.  26.5km in just under 2 hours at 4:24/km pace.

Other key work outs for the week were an interval session that I stuffed up on the Wednesday.  Was supposed to be 5 x 1km but I had an extra step in the Garmin workout which threw me.  Still got in 4 reps at 3:23/km pace.

21km with Rob on Thursday morning.

On the Friday I did an extended Mona fartlek.  I don't like doing the 15 sec reps so have made them last part all 30 secs.  As a result it extends the workout beyond 20 mins. Floats/recoveries were fairly slow with the intention of hitting the reps hard.

Long run was Sunday - 32km with 24km of alternating MP/90% of MP kms.  4km up then 1km @ MP (3:50/km) / 1km @ 90% MP (4:15/km).  Actually went a bit quicker than both target paces at times and when I missed the km alert for an MP km I kept going and did 2km on the way out.  As a result ended up doing 13km @ MP and 11km @ 90%.  4km cooldown was reasonable pace mostly as well.  Overall pace for 32km was 4:04/km.

Last hard long run done.  Felt much better running @ MP this week, probably because I don't have bronchitis anymore!.  This is a perfect late program long run workout for me as it stimulates running when fatigued without having to run a long MP segment and also fits with the way I run my marathons (42 x 1km reps with no rest) so simulates having to get back on pace when you have drifted off.

Week 16 (113km) - First week of taper.  Key runs this week were a repeat of the 5 x 1km interval session on Wednesday.  Despite me removing the additional step that stuffed up this workout last time. my Garmin is apparently smarter than me and put it back in.  Luckily I was able to work around it and still get the 5 x 1km in this time.

Ran at 5km race effort but conditions were not conducive for an even pace and got progressively worse.  Made the most of a big rainy tailwind to run the last of the 5 quicker than the rest (3:15).

Because of the way the workout went, I still had a 1km rep back into the headwind which I ran at tempo effort.

On the Saturday I did 14km with 8km at MP.  Felt a little flat especially from about 5km into the MP segment.  Possibly a bit too much quality this week.  Felt OK running at MP which was well below tempo effort.

Sunday was a 29km long run which was slightly longer than intended.  Was supposed to be 27km but I tried to be clever and use the island at Ascot that Ryan told me about a coupe of weeks ago as a short cut.  But I used the wrong bridge to get onto the island so ended up running around it and adding about 2.5km.  We were supposed to be leaving for Ben's soccer semi final at 9.30am so I had to crank up the  pace a bit over the last 7km even though that wasn't part of the plan.

Felt good.

Week 17 - (87.6km) second week of taper.  In Tassie from Wednesday onwards (no run that day which was all travel).  All easy running except for the Thursday when I did a run out near Hobart airport.  It was really windy with gusts up to 130km/hr. I did  17km including 3 x 1600m with 3 min jog recovery.  Reps were 5:35 (3:31/km); 5:46 (3:38/km); 5:44 (3:36/km).  Bit slower than intended due to the conditions.

Long run on the Sunday was 21km @ 4:36 pace out and back from Swansea on the east coast.

Week 18 (48km pre race - no run Thursday due to travel).  Only key workout was on the Wednesday in Launceston when I did 9km including 3km at marathon pace.  Felt good this day, mainly because the run was largely flat.  The previous couple of days runs had been a bit too hilly.




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