2
So, the rest of the week....
Thursday - long repeat day. Late morning I was still carrying a bit from the previous two days, but had a rough plan of 4 to 5 1k (well, 1.1 or so) repeats with a 2 minute break. I figured I'd aim at around 3:50 for the first and see if I could take a couple of seconds off each subsequent rep. Seemed to loosen up okay at the end of the warm up, and went through the reps at 3:51 pace, 3:47 pace, 3:46 pace (made to call to keep it to 4 reps, with an eye on Sunday's long run), and 3:46 pace, with really hard work in the last 400 to make it that. Would have been nice to do 5, but felt that was sufficient. Ran the first 1k of the cool down at 4:10 pace as punishment, and jogged it in from there.
Friday - 'easy' day, droned around the neighbourhood for a bit over half an hour for a bit under 6.9k. Felt fine, although hill climbing seemed a little more unpleasant than normal.
Saturday - got up early and rode with my Saturday morning cycling group, didn't kill it, knocked over about 36k or so in what would overall have been about 30 km/h average. Good to get out, haven't had the old Giant out for a few weeks.
In the afternoon, with the QR XC running its Schools championships, I headed over to UQ and after a bit of a warm up, punched out a 3:50 paced out and back of the gravel path, around 4.45km in total. Had a bit of a battle between 3 and 4km, but brought it home strongly.
Sunday - another instalment in my ongoing battle with the long run. After some soul searching and comments from a fellow runner I decided to change my approach, grabbing my faithful old iPod Nano (my companion on many long runs in my last marathon campaign in 2005/6), loading up some tunes (Clint Mansell's excellent soundtracks for Moon and The Fountain, plus some Radiohead) and setting the Garmin to display heart rate only. The idea was to do 30km, and just do distance at whatever pace was necessary to do it. I worked out a course in Gmaps Pedometer (basically two laps of the northern part of the River Loop, from the Green Bridge to the Go Between Bridge, north on the West End side, south on the Coronation Drive side, starting at a park in Toowong to give nigh on exactly 30km.
And so, I set off on Sunday afternoon, oblivious to pace, droning around. I didn't end up stopping at all for water or sports drink/gel (no water was probably a bit silly, but still, got through) and the last couple of km got a bit grim mentally, but if truth be told the legs held up pretty well, and I ended up covering pretty much exactly 30km in a bit over 2:24, giving 4:49 pace - funnily enough, when I stopped I thought to myself "that felt 4:50ish".
So, about 97km or so for the week, all sessions done pretty much as intended, and nice to finish with a bit of a breakthrough. Be interesting to see how I pull up tomorrow (I'm going with sore) but I've got the compression tights on and will have a good solid stretch before hitting the hay tonight.
Easy week next week with the Brisbane Road Runners 7k instalment of the club championships on Sunday - will need to have a bit of a think about my training plan. Still, we're on our way.
Thursday - long repeat day. Late morning I was still carrying a bit from the previous two days, but had a rough plan of 4 to 5 1k (well, 1.1 or so) repeats with a 2 minute break. I figured I'd aim at around 3:50 for the first and see if I could take a couple of seconds off each subsequent rep. Seemed to loosen up okay at the end of the warm up, and went through the reps at 3:51 pace, 3:47 pace, 3:46 pace (made to call to keep it to 4 reps, with an eye on Sunday's long run), and 3:46 pace, with really hard work in the last 400 to make it that. Would have been nice to do 5, but felt that was sufficient. Ran the first 1k of the cool down at 4:10 pace as punishment, and jogged it in from there.
Friday - 'easy' day, droned around the neighbourhood for a bit over half an hour for a bit under 6.9k. Felt fine, although hill climbing seemed a little more unpleasant than normal.
Saturday - got up early and rode with my Saturday morning cycling group, didn't kill it, knocked over about 36k or so in what would overall have been about 30 km/h average. Good to get out, haven't had the old Giant out for a few weeks.
In the afternoon, with the QR XC running its Schools championships, I headed over to UQ and after a bit of a warm up, punched out a 3:50 paced out and back of the gravel path, around 4.45km in total. Had a bit of a battle between 3 and 4km, but brought it home strongly.
Sunday - another instalment in my ongoing battle with the long run. After some soul searching and comments from a fellow runner I decided to change my approach, grabbing my faithful old iPod Nano (my companion on many long runs in my last marathon campaign in 2005/6), loading up some tunes (Clint Mansell's excellent soundtracks for Moon and The Fountain, plus some Radiohead) and setting the Garmin to display heart rate only. The idea was to do 30km, and just do distance at whatever pace was necessary to do it. I worked out a course in Gmaps Pedometer (basically two laps of the northern part of the River Loop, from the Green Bridge to the Go Between Bridge, north on the West End side, south on the Coronation Drive side, starting at a park in Toowong to give nigh on exactly 30km.
And so, I set off on Sunday afternoon, oblivious to pace, droning around. I didn't end up stopping at all for water or sports drink/gel (no water was probably a bit silly, but still, got through) and the last couple of km got a bit grim mentally, but if truth be told the legs held up pretty well, and I ended up covering pretty much exactly 30km in a bit over 2:24, giving 4:49 pace - funnily enough, when I stopped I thought to myself "that felt 4:50ish".
So, about 97km or so for the week, all sessions done pretty much as intended, and nice to finish with a bit of a breakthrough. Be interesting to see how I pull up tomorrow (I'm going with sore) but I've got the compression tights on and will have a good solid stretch before hitting the hay tonight.
Easy week next week with the Brisbane Road Runners 7k instalment of the club championships on Sunday - will need to have a bit of a think about my training plan. Still, we're on our way.
