Intervals

Headed to McGillivray for an easy intervals session in preparation for Sunday. The aim was to do 5 1k reps at 10k pace (3:30) - because of the dubious nature of the markings and restricted to lanes 2, 6 and 7 I ran two laps in lane 7 (891m) as a close replacement and did 4x200 at the end. I was aiming to do the reps in 3 minutes because I thought that was 3:30 pace (turns out my mental arithmetic sucks early in the morning)

2:58/3:01.7/3:00.0/3:02.0/3:01.3

..so these were closer to 3:22 pace which is a relief because they were a little harder than expected.

The 200m's were long/short because of the strange track markings so I took the average of the two.

31.8/31.8/31.3/31.3

Did some drills before and after as well, so around 10k all up.

Wednesday did an easy run from home around Pt.Majestic, returning up over the hill and back for 9.5km @ 4:39 HR145 Ca84 675bpk. beautiful crisp morning, still a tad chilly. Really looking forward to the sunny days ahead ; I'm a little tired of being cold, wet and windswept.

Long Run and Tempo

Saturday we started bright and early at 6am from Darlington on a frigid but sunny morning, with a fairly strong easterly just to keep us honest (and a little colder). Did the same run as last week - strangely there were absolutely no kangaroos or wallabies anywhere, but there were still plenty of parrots and the wildflowers were stunning. Sas is getting stronger by the minute and ran really well today. We ended up doing 21.54km at a brisk 4:35 (HR149 Ca84 350m asc. 684bpk) without any stops .. lovely run. When we got had a quick stretch and a natter with the folks doing the short ones today, while enjoying a banana roll (sharing with the magpies & 28's) land. If anyone ever asks me, 'why do I run', that's why I run.. Beautiful weather, beautiful country, and good company.

Sunday I had a rest day. First day off for three weeks.

Monday Sas & I were up at NextG for our King's Park run with the only other 2 people nuts enough to run at 6am on a cold and wintry public holiday. Warmed up down to the bottom of the hill at Poole Ave where I started my 25 minute tempo effort back up Park Ave, the Law Walk, Fraser Ave to the circle on May Drive and back to StickyBeaks (map) 6.5km with @3:52 pace (HR173 Ca90 100m asc. 668bpk) ; this was tough effort with a few steep hills on the Law walk, but happy with the result. Can't say the day off made this easier... but I suppose it could be that it was hard because I did this on empty ;  the price for an extra 5 minutes in bed. But then, tempo runs aren't supposed to be easy....

Coker Park Mile and 3000m

Pretty windy at the track tonight (SSW30/39) but at least it was dry and cool (14°C 52%RH) . I had a pretty good night with a decent mile and felt really strong in the 3k, running a good time without really bending my back. I'm surprised because I was feeling a little tired and sore after the track session on Tuesday so wasn't expecting much.

The mile started getting tough after a couple of laps because the wind in the home straight was really picking up and it was a real effort just to maintain the pace. HR175 Ca 94.

73.5/73.5/76.0/73.9 = 4:56.9

The 3k started about 20 minutes after the mile, and there were some strong runners (including Michael Mezzatesta who ran 17:18 at the Freo 5k on the weekend, and Andrew Brooker who's run some serious times on the track)  so I was expecting a bit of a group but it failed to materialise after they dropped off after 4 laps or so. I felt great, just maintaining the pace without having to dig at all and finished strongly - too bad it wasn't a 5k!. HR 178 Ca91.

37.0/80.8/80.8/80.1/79.8/80.5/78.1/76.9 = 9:54.0 (3:18.6/3:20.0/3:15.4)


Friday am did a short recovery run from home to Canning Ave and back, 5.8km @4:46, HR 141 Ca85 673bpk. Stunning morning - if it had been windy and raining I would have stayed in bed, but given the bright sunshine and crisp conditions I felt an obligation to the weather gods to get out there...

Intervals

Did an easy run on Monday, the standard Kings Park loop, 8.44km @4:27 HR148 Ca84 100m ascent, 663bpk.

Tuesday did a tough intervals session at the new stadium ; conditions were warm at first but when the sun went away the wind was a little icy. The track was quite busy with a few slightly rude youngsters who think that doing warmup jogs taking up the three inside lanes is acceptable behaviour. You may have a little gold in your tracksuits, but you ain't that special.

Anyhow, I did a 4x200, 2x400, 2x800, 2x400, 4x200 with reasonable recoveries (60/90/120sec for each distance). By the end my diaphragm was having a hard time getting enough oxygen into the lungs and was getting a little painful ; a pretty wierd an unpleasant sensation! I ran this pretty hard and was very  pleased with the results (I've never averaged over 20kph over a session before - 4.8km in 14:18.3 = 20.11km/h), and my 200's are definitely getting quicker) but I was completely shagged by the end.

4 x 200: 34.1/32.1/31.7/31.4
2 x 400: 73.0/69.3
2 x 800: 2:36.0/2:34.8
2 x 400: 71.3/72.0
4 x 200: 33.2/33.3/34.9/32.2

We left at 5:15 so must have just missed Biscuitman's epic session with Epi, Clown and TB ; the track was getting crowded with quite a few show ponies prancing around and not doing much running...

Wednesday morning did the usual Pt. Majestic hill loop, and the legs still felt tired. 9.5km @4:38 HR148 Ca84 685bpk. No run tomorrow morning, but a Mile and a 3k at Coker tomorrow evening. As usual I'll race the short one and try to do the three in just under 10, but hopefully not all out. It'll make a nice change for there not to be a howling gale.

Freo HM 5k

Ran a reasonable race today finishing in 17:00 in 5th just behind the elusive Balinga Pascoe. Good field for the race, with Ethan Heywood winning in 15:18, Josh Tedesco second in 15:59 or so. Emily Loughnan was first woman in 17:39. The start for these things is always a bit of a bunfight but that was successfully negotiated and I could start picking up some places. Ran pretty well but legs (and body) were a little tired from the reasonably hard running I've done in the last weeks or two. Happy with the pacing that I managed to keep going, but didn't really have any 'zip'. Conditions were reasonable with a bit of wind, not really a factor though, and it's a course that has a few twists and turns, so not the fastest.


Splits: 3:23/3:24/3:26/3:24/3:23 = 17:00 (3K in 10:13)


Half marathon winners were Michael Dymnicki and Tina Major with 1:14 high and 1:21 low. The wind kicked up for the half so conditions would have been tough, but some Rotto marathoners managed to pick up some PB's with Kate S running a great 1:43:58, and Jo C getting her NYC qualifier with 12 minutes to spare!

Darlington Long Run

Friday ran the Pt Majestic hill loop with Sas (9.5km @4:32 HR 152 Ca84 690 bpk ). The wind was strong and into our faces for the outward stretch and we were both feeling a little fatigues so this was a tough effort.

Saturday I dragged Sas up Darlington Road, through JF park up Oxley, Hedges, Brooking Rds, then back down to darlington on the trail. A tough run but very enjoyable indeed. It has three major hills and a total of 350m of ascent. Conditions were cool and no wind and there were kangaroos and parrots aplenty. 20.42km @ 4:43 HR 148 Ca 84, 697bpk. I felt stronger today on the hills and not nearly as shagged when we finished as I have the last two weeks. Stunning run.

Running the Freo 5k tomorrow, hopefully I'll feel good and do a decent time, but I'm not too worried about it, it's been a pretty good week training-wise, with the main goal being the 10k at the Freo fun run in a couple of weeks, looking to go sub-35. Saying that, I'll be disappointed not to go sub-17 tomorrow, hopefully there'll be some strong runners in the field ; there seem to have been of late in the 5ks.

Coker Park: 1000m, 600m and 3000m

Tough conditions tonight ; more windy than last Thursday - manageable for the short stuff but made the 3000m  tough going. I kicked the night off with the 1000m with a bit of competition ; Campbell Till led the way for the first lap and eased back after 400m and I took over, being chased by another middle distance speedster Neil Morfitt. It was great to be pushed and I ended up doing a PB by a few seconds :

33.9 62.7 34.3 34.8 = 2:55.7 (2:20.9 800m split) 

Helped out with the timing for the 60 and 100m races and decided to do the 600m, seeing as I had a good race in the 1000m and had had a 30 minute break. Started well and was overtaken by Colin Smith with about 300m, a pretty quick sprinter for whom 600m is at the end of his range. He pulled ahead to a sizeable lead, but I used that as a spur to try to run him down, just failing, but grabbing a 2 second PB in the process.

33.3 32.7 33.3 = 1:39.3 ( 65 sec 400m split)

About 5 minutes later (!) the 3000m started - obviously the 600m took a bit out of the legs and I struggled a little in the conditions to maintain the pace, managing a healthy 10:07 but it was a bit of an effort!

38.5/80.9/80.9/81.8/81.4/81.9/81.6/79.9 = 10:06.9 ( km splits 3:20.3 3:23.9 3:22.7 )


The pleasing thing about tonight is that I didn't feel quite so uncoordinated running the fast stuff ; before I was having problems with rythm, almost like the feet were hitting the ground out oif sunch to when I was expecting it. I felt a lot smoother tonight.

The week so far...

Ran fairly easy this week except for intervals, and I added an extra run on Thursday morning because I just felt I'm not really working hard enough.

Monday ran a loop of King's Park nice and easy ; beautiful conditions. 8.44km @ 4:32 HR143 Ca84 Ascent 100, 649bpk.

Tuesday did the WAMC interval session with JK's group. Interesting because we were a test group for the new timing system they are using for the Melbourne Marathon. The RFID chip is on the back of the number and is registered when you run over the starting mat. There'll be  a lot of thankful marathon runners not having to extricate a timing chip from their shoelaces... I overheard that they will be gunning for the Perth C2S as well which would be great. 7 x 2 minutes of effort with 1:45 recovery. I covered about 650 per block with another 20 metres for the last one, and I felt good running pretty hard.

Wednesday morning just did 9.5km recovery at 4:41 HR 144 Ca84, 40m ascent., 674bpk. Felt a little stiff from the previous evening's effort but loosened up quickly on a lovely morning.

Thursday I went up to Mends street where Kim runs with her gang, and I decided to run at the last minute. Ran it in my McMillan 'easy' range (4:11 to 4:38) - there was a bit of wind which made the outward run to the Causeway not as easy as it should have been but felt comfortable and held myself back a little so as not to totally blow the session at Coker tonight. 9.59km @ 4:15 HR158 Ca86 671bpk. Made a change for a non-race run to be in the 150's...

Recovery Run, Long Run and Lake Gwelup 10 'XC'

Ran the E.Perth/Heirisson 9.4km @ 4.43 HR 136 Ca83 641bpk on a fairly pleasant morning. Nice, easy, uneventful run. With a tailwind in both directions for the second week running ! Not sure how that works.... but I'll take it. Pity the poor buggers running in the opposite direction.

Saturday ran the same Darlinton to GE Highway 22.22km @4:40 HR 147 Ca84 687bpk. Fairly good conditions and felt a little stronger this week. Got a little rain on the way up and a stiff headwind on the way down, which made for a tough run, especially as this was a non-stop effort with no gels and no food beforehand. I may go back to the Sustagen (or Up and Go - or is that Go and UpChuck?) as a pre-run meal.. There was a lot of water under foot, but the trail was just gorgeous with running streams everywhere and a lot of plants starting to burst into blossom . Sas ran stronger today being her second week up in the hills after a long layoff. Didn't bother with the coffee this week and stopped in at the MuzzBuzz on the way home - which I suspect will be the new tradition....

Lake Gwelup 10km (map) in 36:40 (3:40) HR75 Ca90 642bpk. Ran this at a hard but not maximal effort - it was tougher than expected course with a lot of undulations, some significant hills (about 75m of ascent) and a variety of surfaces with lengthy sections on grass, sand, limestone and concrete. Ran the first 3km with the eventual 3rd place 10k'er, trying to stick with Clemens Schmidt - it's great to see him back after a lengthy layoff ; they both ran out of puff a bit on the hilly section and I managed to pull away, so was pretty much on my own in 2nd from that point to the end. The 10k winner was miles ahead and finished in 35 flat. I definitely felt yesterday's hills run in the legs esp. the hilly/sandy sections but very happy with the effort.

Lap 1: 3:33.8/3:32.7/3:39.3/3:33.8/3:47.5 = 18:07.1

Lap2: 3:43.8/3:42.1/3:45.6/3:32.6/3:48.4 = 18:32.5 = 36:39.6

Coker 1500m and 2000m

Well, 2 PB's (chiefly because I've never 'raced' these distances before) but I came a way feeling slightly disappointed, I guess feeling that I hadn't really applied myself particularly in the 2k. The 1500 was good although it was pretty windy last night and I think I did the last lap in about lane three because of track congestion.

53.7 / 73.6 / 76.4 / 73.1 = 4:36.8 (km split 3:04.6/1:32.2 )

The 2000m started about 25 minutes later and I guess there was still some (physical and mental) fatigue, and I think I just got the pacing wrong - I really held back in the middle 3 laps, although the km splits were even!

74.3 / 78.7 / 77.4 / 78.8 / 75.2 = 6:24.4 (km splits 3:12.2/3:12.2)

Still it was a good strength workout (which is really the main goal) and I can't expect to break new ground every week.

Recovery day Friday, Darlington long run on Saturday and Sunday I plan do do the Gwelup 10km as a hard tempo run, hopefully around 36 minutes, we'll see how that goes... thankfully the wind forecast is promising, I'm really over this wet 'n windy weather.

Run yourself fugly.... C2S finishing photo

Intervals and an Easy Run

The stadium seems to be unavailable to us plebs for the time being so we headed to McGillivray oval for the interval session. The aim was to do the same workout as last week, but because of the track restrictions these were run in lane for adding 11, 22 and 33m to the 200, 400 and 600m intervals. I wasn't particularly inspired to do this session and neither was Sas, but we got through it. Conditions were sunny but a tad windy, and it was tough on the wet grass. Still managed to crank up to the same speeds as last week...

Did the usual East Perth 13.92km @ 4:34 HR 146 Ca84 bpk 668 but went Belmont first this time. It was warm, humid and sunny so the HR was up a bit ; I think I'm having a 'tired' week as well. As usual both the coompany and the post-run coffee were very pleasant indeed.

Lazy days..

Friday did a nice recovery on the Windan/Causeway loop with the north Heirisson island loop added on. 9.39km @ 4:35 HR 144 Ca 83, 661 bpk. Weather was pleasant, but legs felt a bit tired.

Saturday ran the huggy trail from Darlington up to the GE highway and back for 22.22km @4:47 HR 146 Ca84 220m ascent, 699bpk. Sas ran this one for her first run in the hills for 5 month. Great to have her back! It was pretty nice at first (albeit very cold) but we got some icy showers and strong winds on the way down. Took it fairly easy on the way out and were 4 minutes faster coming down with lower HR average. Legs felt very fatigued (but in a good way!) when we were finished ; it was the first time I'd run that far on the trail for a while and it's quite different to the bitumen. Most of the runs have been bitumen for all but the last 6 or 7km coming down the hill again. Tried the coffee again at the bakery after hearing good (well, not quite so bad) reports, but I'm afraid it's still the worst coffee in town. At least it was warm...

Sunday was the WAMC Pancake run, but helping out with the Saturday trailer pickup and load at WAMC, Sunday delivery to KP, setup, cook pancakes, load at KP, unload at WAMC, trailer return. Takes half the weekend, but it's such a fun event I'm always happy to do it. It was a good opportunity to rake a rest day as well, the first in two weeks. Weather turned out perfect but the forecast wasn't great so numbers were own a bit. Still managed to get through about 30-40kg of pancake mix....

After a few tough weeks I was starting to feel a little fatigued so instead of the normal Monday tempo I just ran a fairly light workout through King's park on Monday morning. 8.49km at 4:32 pace HR 145, 85m ascent, 658 bpk. The conditions were just perfect and the sunrise is always a gorgeous sight over the city...

Easy run and Coker Park 5k PB

Wednesday ran the Maylands Garrett Rd Belmont loop for 13.91km @ 4:33, HR 143 Ca 84, 651bpk. Legs felt a little stiff and tired but the HR was good and they eased up by the time we got to the Garret Bridge. I do love the bit along the river by Belmont even though it's quite hilly. The weather was pretty good and it was a very enjoyable run finished with a coffee at Cobalt.

Thursday evening I went to Coker in absolutely perfect conditions with the aim of rolling through the 3k in ~ 10 minutes and see how long I could sustain the laps. I have been rolling thru the 3k's for a few weeks now with them being comfortably hard so I was quite confident that this would work out, but I was wary of the effect Sunday would have. The 'big clock' was at the finish line which really helped as I could keep an eye on the total time, rather than the individual lap times and just tried to keep the pace even. I managed better than I thought I could and even managed to put in a good final lap to make up most of the deficit to finish in 16:43 by my watch. The 3k split was 10:03.5.

Lap Splits:

36.4 81.1 81.0 80.9 80.9 81.3 81.5 80.4 81.38 80.4 82.2 81.8 73.8 = 16:43.0

Km Splits

3:18.5 3:22.4 3:22.6 3:22.8 3:16.7

Recovery run, Intervals and the road ahead

On Monday ran with Sas thru King's park on the 8.4km loop. It was pretty cold and my legs were a little beaten up from Sunday, but started to feel OK by the end, so I'm glad I did it. Went downhill first and my legs were feeling pretty stiff and non-responsive by the bottom of the hill at Poole Ave (just after passing thru 'the freezer' around Zamia). Then we headed up the Law walk and it was a bit of an effort but the sunrise over the hills just as we came up took the mind off it - what a glorious morning!

Tuesday, I went down to the new aths stadium for a mid-level tough workout. The bad news is that we were informed that it will no longer be open for general admission in the mornings because they aren't getting the numbers, which pretty much sucks. I'm not surprised they don't get the numbers because 7am opening is just too late for most people who work... we'll see what happens.

Did a pyramid with fairly short breaks: 4x200;3x400;2x600;2x400;4x200, 4.4km of effort. It felt like hard work (I guess it's supposed to...), especially the 600s. The wind started to whip up mid-session which didn't help, but the times were fairly consistent and I PB'd on my last 200, so there's a high point. Ah, the little things....

36.0 35.7 33.8 34.6

72.7 72.0

1:55.4 1:55.8

73.2 71.8

35.6 33.6 34.6 31.4

Where to now? I found on Sunday that although the pace was consistent andI felt strong on the hills, stamina was an issue, so that's something to work on.

I reckon that until I stop seeing big improvements in the 5k I should keep going with those, but throw in a 10k race here and there. Probably do the 5k at the Freo HM, and at the Freo fun run, and the 10k at Rottnest. The road races is where the competition is at so I definitely look forward to that - and there seem to be a good few strong runners doing these at the moment - 16:52 at Lake Joondalup was only good enough for 9th place ; that's healthy competition!

The track on Thursday is good, but it's a shame there isn't any competition to push my effort up to another level. This may change as we hit summer, and there's a Master championship in Sydney soon that may see more numbers out there.