Sunday, April 5, 2009

Week of 30/3 ; 3 weeks to go

3 weeks to go. Taper time.... will cut the mileage to about 80% this week. One change will be a 3k at the track on Thursday evening instead of the 'MP' run. Midweek long run is a few k's shorter, Friday is a rest day and the long run on the weekend will be 24k and no second run that day. Easy/recovery runs will stay the same, maybe make Wednesday's a little shorter. Had a flu shot Tuesday morning - I've felt this has boosted my immunity (not just to flu) for the last couple of years and have had minimal side-effects. Hopefully this year will be no different. Got the number pickup card in the mail on Wednesday... game on!

Monday: 13.58km Tempo @ 3:51 HR 167 Ca 91 18°C 72% SE11/19. Ran the usual course in King's park up and over to Lovekin Dr and back (map). Did not feel like doing this today, but once I was out there it went very well.  Speed was up and that's a great HR for the course. Did it on green tea and sustagen. Another tick in the 'done' column - I won't be doing this run again for a while (next week's 'tempo' is the Bridges 10k) so it was nice to finish on a good one. All up 16.33km.

Monday pm: Sports massage with KD - pretty good, not too many hotspots which is pretty encouraging considering what my legs have been through in the past 4 weeks...

Tuesday am: 9.59km recovery @ 4:42 HR 139 Ca 86 15°C 90% S 6/11. Ran the Mends bridges loop with Sas ; nice morning, it definitely makes a change to be starting at sunrise and actually have some light! Legs felt quite stiff and sore from the massage yesterday - more so than usual which is odd considering it's the least painful sports massage I've had for a long time -  and took quite a few k's to loosen up. This run is one I always look forward to as a really easy effort but it's never quite as easy as I think it's going to be!

Tuesday pm: WAMC Intervals. 20°C 60% SSW33/46. Quite(!) windy this evening  but nice and cool - the session was 10x400 with 75seconds SR, so it was over pretty quickly. I felt pretty good and had a last push to get my legs speed going before I rest intervals-wise for the next couple of weeks. I think the track was probably a little short but I was happy with the effort and the pace. I also wore my Inspires which are a heavier shoe in an attempt to protect the calf a bit (and they actually felt great!) - it was a little niggly toward the end of the set but I've had it much worse, so I'm really encouraged by that. Held back a bit on the last couple. Splits were 76, 72, 70, 70, 70, 70, 71, 71, 70, 72. All up around 8km.

Wednesday am: 10.21km Easy @ 4:26 HR 144 Ca87 12°C 77% S19/24.  Headed out on the Maylands loop solo this am - it was cool and windy but pretty decent conditions - somehow the wind on this run is never that bad. Cut the normal 12km back a bit and it felt good to get back 'early'. Finished up with the traditional stretch and 4-shot macchiato at Cobalt. Tempted by the bread and butter pud (which I had on Sunday - mmmm....), but managed to resist in favour of 'proper' breakfast food.

Thursday am: 16.65km easy @ 4:24 pace HR 145 Ca 87 11°C 76% SSE15/19. Ran the usual loop from Mends St to UWA up the western path of King's Park and did a shorter loop back to May drive past Sticky Beaks again and down Malcolm back to Mends. For once we had a bit of a headwind going out (usually we have a nice easterly) but it was pretty crisp this morning so perfect conditions really. Had a good run although started to feel generally a little leg sore by the end - I'm glad it was a bit shorter! Very happy with how I felt though and a good HR - didn't feel like it took too much out of me.

Thursday pm: 7.92km MP @4:03 HR 159 Ca 88 21°C 51% SSW35/44. Transport issues prevented me from doing the 3k at the track so I did my home river loop MP run. Went very well - the Elixir 4's that I have been finding a little hard suddenly seem to have some bounce to the ride. I felt very good on this run after being a little reluctant to get out the door as I had felt tired all afternoon. I think I may finally have got my MP run right - a little fast perhaps but I felt very comfortable at this pace, and the conditions weren't that kind.

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 23.72km @ 4:40 pace HR 154 Ca86 11°C 70% E30/46. Ran the Darlington Park Rd run (map) with Sas this cold and blustery morning ; felt a pretty tough run the whole way. The strong easterly going up the hill to John Forrest did not help! I don't know what it is about rest days, I always feel crap the day after... this is never an easy run though - its uphill pretty much from Midland to the crest on Lionel Rd - that's about 16k. I'd been going pretty well up to this point so it's a little disappointing, but this always seems to happen in the taper. It's almost like my brain and body didn't come to the party this morning at all!

Sunday: 10km @ 3:42 pace HR 178 Ca 92 16°C 64% E28/37. ASICS Bridges 10k race - held back a little because I didn't want this to be a 100% effort and stuff myself for Boston. Felt pretty good for most of it - the headwind in South Perth made it tough going for the middle section of the race - picked it up a bit from the causeway and eased into the finish. Sas had a good run - 3rd female and big PB, breaking the 40-minute monkey with a nice 39:52. Biscuitman also finished with a massive PB in 37:15- team 'Going to Boston' winning the open team medal :-)
Splits were 3:27, 3:38, 3:38, 3:47, 3:46, 3:47, 3:51, 3:54, 3:38, 3:35. Pretty happy with this run after yesterday's downer.

In summary, 103km this week, all good except for the tough one on Saturday, but conditions probably had something to do with it. Pretty happy with the way things are. Next week we cut the mileage down again to about 80km.




5 comments:

duffer said...

I would have thought 4:03/km was a bit slower than marathon pace.

I was a bit disappointed with averaging 4:05 for my last marathon and there is no way I could have done what you have been doing in training.

Don't limit yourself too much.

Biscuitman said...

Thanks for giving me someone to chase - again!!

Clown said...

You seemed to be cruising today, well done.

Not sure if you are doing Intervals this week, but if not, all the best to you and Sas for Boston

colllllli said...

Firstly All the best for boston,
Just wondering how you got those splits so accurately down as they were not properly laid out and several km markers were missing?
Please can you advise me as to how you break 40min, In a drunken new year bet said I could do it, only managed a 48min yesterday and have been training about 3 x 10km every week for the last 6 weeks. Do you recomend longer runs like 21's or shorter 5kms ?
once again good luck for boston
regards
colin

DC64 said...

The splits aren't necessarily accurate to the second, I just took a lap when i went past the markers - they were all there. Two things you need for good 10k running - speed and endurance. Endurance you get by doing a lot of aerobic running - you probably need to add a long run every week - up to 2 hours - but you need to built up to this slowly. It does take time - years even. Speed you get by doing intervals training - at least once a week, probably twice if you're really trying to get the speed going. Speed comes relatively quickly if you have a good endurance base.