Tempos and Recoveries

First up, I hope Simon E, Tony S, Clown and Epi have a great time running Boston on Monday. Weather looks good, and this year you get a tailwind, lucky buggers!

On Tuesday afternoon the weather was getting worse as time went on, so I decided to go out early before the heavy stuff hit. I was planning to go to JK’s intervals session but the weather was predicted to be bad, so I thought I'd do a Mona Fartlek session on the Canning Bridges course. My feet felt zippy from the start, as they usually do when I put on the Revolvers.

The 3.5km warmup up the freeway path into a good NW wind was at 4:17 pace ; I turned and went pretty much straight away. I was running south down the freeway path toward the Mt Henry bridge with a NW 28kph wind on my tail, because I figure doing a session like this into a strong headwind is a bit soul destroying, even though it’s a relatively sheltered path.

I covered a bit more than last week, even though that had an extra minute last because the Mona session was done manually. No such glitches this time, 20:00 on the nose for 5:67km. Felt fast today. As with last week I continued a semi-tempo session doing the 3.3km home into the rain and wind at a healthy 4:02 pace, never really feeling pushed, and I actually enjoyed the rain.

Great session! ( might have had something to do with the double espresso at 2 o’clock…. )

Wednesday morning, I decided to head up the freeway path and then over/under/over/under the Narrows and back - 14.88km @ 4:22 HR 154. The first half was into a fairly strong northerly wind (33/38kph) ; it wasn’t that much fun but I think the cyclists had it worse. These Wednesday ‘easy’ runs are always a bit tough, I guess I need to suck it up as long as my week is structured the way it is. I may consider moving this to the evening to get more recovery from the Tuesday evening intervals. The wind seemed to drop a bit as the run went on, so I didn’t really get the blow home I was looking for. Enjoyed my breakfast!

Thursday morning recovery - 9.92km @ 4:48 HR 137Nice morning to be out, felt a little tired after a bad nights sleep, but OK. Once I got over the Causeway and got the slight tailwind I felt more relaxed. Another iron shot in the butt yesterday left things a tad tender.

Thursday evening I chose a steady state tempo run with long warmup and cooldown. I’m loving these late afternoon runs. There was a bit of wind around this afternoon which made it tough in places. I think this is a good length tempo run for me ( ~ 15km ; two loops of the Canning Bridges), but I may increase the length of the tempo section and reduce the warmup/cooldown a bit. It was a long way home! Felt good though – the warmup especially I was averaging good pace without feeling puffed at all; the tempo was good but I got tired towards the end, so probably should have reduced pace a bit to keep the HR down ; next time just a bit slower I think – the HR was a bit high by the end, but I was in a 3-2 breathing pattern so that’s OK – but 3-3 is better ; average HR 174. Not a bad effort for the first steady state run I've done in a long time.

Friday morning was beautiful - still and sunny ; good recovery run 6km @ 4:48 HR 138, not feeling too fatigued considering yesterday’s efforts. The sun got warm after a while though. Nice long slow run tomorrow in the hills ; looking forward to it, as well as checking out the national trials at the stadium this weekend – it’s going to be a bit different from the Masters Nationals two weeks ago…. very exciting!