Melbourne Marathon 2015 - Week 5 of 16
The first block of four weeks is done. Wow, time flies. In many respects, the 16-week period of the plan represents four macro-level blocks. You build for the first three, then taper for the fourth leading into the race. So this week is the first of a new block, the beginning of the second quarter, and I am well on my way. Jack Daniels and others talk about refining the plan and target times no more than every four weeks as it can take this long for changes to accumulate in the body. I have begun this plan with a target of 3:15 for the race, but a (not so) secret desire to get into shape to run a 3:10. So I am looking for evidence that I can sustain the faster paces associated with the 3:10 plan.
My theme for this week is build. The key sessions this week are just that bit faster than a few weeks ago and it is important that I can stay on top of them. I also want to use this theme for my runs, trying to pay better attention to pacing and building into each run rather than going flat out from the start.
I also think I need to revisit my target times. The Furman plan is very hard on these short sprints and I find them way too hard. McMillan gives a range of times and even the fastest is slower than the Furman suggestions. These work much better for me!
Wednesday 29 July
Back to Nike Run Club tonight and I opted for a shorter 5k run as I wanted to rest my legs a little. I really enjoyed this 5m30s pace group as we trundled around the Yarra and Olympic Park environs. Each week we are also including the "magic mile" (at least that's what I call it) where we encourage our runners to "Find their Fast" and go for it! Today this group was really quick, running more than 30 sec ahead of their pace group speed. I was such a proud run leader :-)
Thursday 30 July
Today in Melbourne was another absolutely beautiful, calm, sunny winter's day. Oh, wait a minute, no it wasn't. It was a cold blowing a gale day, which is fine if you are staying inside, but not so much fun if you have a tempo set to do at lunch time. But I'd rather run in the daytime and at least see what I am doing so off I went down to the Yarra to knock out a 5km tempo run. The program called for a 2k warm-up followed by 5k @4.10 pace then 3k cool down to finish.
Due to the ongoing path works near Chapel Street I shortened the warm up to 1km so that I'd be well finished my fast bit before getting to the road crossing. Of course, since I'd be running fast, I extended the fast bit to near 7k so that I could have a go at my 'CR' time on a favourite Strava segment. An extra fast km never hurt anyone, did it?
In keeping with my mantra for the week of "build" I was careful not to overextend early. The first 3k are mostly sheltered and offer a bit of a cross tailwind so I was careful not to get carried away here. I did these k's in 4.05, 4.03 and 4.12 for the one that ends with some uphill. So far so good. I was feeling in control. The last couple of k's are a mix of uphill, downhill, headwind and tailwind - pretty much everything - and I ran these in 4.13 and 4.07 which is ok but not fast. This gave me a 5k split of 20.40 (4.08 pace) which was pretty good! I continued on for my Strava segment, covering this only 5 sec outside my best time which was done just before the Gold Coast Marathon last year when I was in great form and on a great day. Very pleasing!!
I finished a total of 6k hard in 4.10 pace which is ace and continued on for the 10k run into a light drizzle and nasty wind. A good run, very happy with this!
Sunday 2 August
The last run of the week and the big one, my long run. The weather yesterday morning was forecast to be rain and wind, so I went for a ride and deferred the long run till today. As it turned out, the rain disappeared by mid-morning yesterday and by today the wind had picked up so it was probably worse. Aargh! Oh well, that's life in a Melbourne winter. It's going to be windy. I remember back in 2009 it was really windy for almost every long run and on race day it was perfect. I hope for much the same this year!
Today's loop was once again down to the beach then south along the shore to Parkdale, before returning inland via Nepean Highway and Chesterville Road. The target pace was 5.04m/k but I intended to run a bit quicker than this and try be around 5m/k if I could. I was right onto the pace from early on and kept it fairly even at 4.55-5.00 for the first 20k down to Parkdale. This was the easier part of the run, I knew it would be harder slightly uphill and into the wind on the return.
I worked hard and ran these in about 5.00-5.08. I was tired, and y left knee was feeling a bit sore, but I was not overly fatigued. Once again I had three gels - one just as I started then two more at 60min and 100min into the run. These worked well. Coming up the last km I was even able to lift the pace slightly to get back to an average of 4.59m/k for the run. Very pleasing!!
My theme for this week is build. The key sessions this week are just that bit faster than a few weeks ago and it is important that I can stay on top of them. I also want to use this theme for my runs, trying to pay better attention to pacing and building into each run rather than going flat out from the start.
Tuesday 28 July
There's a slight and disturbing trend emerging with my pace setting during this program. More than once I have set out with absolutely the wrong target pace in my head. Obviously this is not the end of the world (!) but sheesh, it's not like I have much to remember when I am out running. Today's interval session was another case in point.
It was a plain and simple set: 3x 1600m in 6.11 min with a 400m RI. If done on a regular aths track, no problemo, 4 laps plus 1 lap! When done at Olympic Park, however, it requires far more maths. Not difficult maths, but some. And when you head off for a run and you haven't even thought about the maths you are courting problems, as I was soon to discover.
For this track is ~520m around, a completely irregular distance of ever one was concocted. So, whilst heading down the hill to the track I began to work out what a 6.11min/1600m was for three laps of this track. Which was all fine except in my head 3x520=1660 and not 1560. Proudly, I worked out that 60m meant about 12 sec extra per rep; so when I started off I had a time of 6.23 for three laps in my head - let's call it 2.07 min/lap and be done with it I thought!
Now, if you haven't gone to sleep or clicked to another web page somewhere, you'll realise this was completely screwy. But I started my laps blissfully ignorant of the error. On the positive side, I was consciously holding back for the first lap, wanting to pick up the pace for each of the three laps rather than go out fast and die. So when I rounded a fairly conservative lap one and saw 2.04 on my watch I knew something was amiss. These times would not be easy and I knew I wasn't running this well. (See only took me 520m to work this out!)
Some very quick maths ensued and I realised I had stuffed the calculations completely. Doh! I quickly established a new target of 6.00 min even for the 1560m, though I now know the correct target was 6.02! Anyway, 6 min it was which meant 2 min/lap which meant I was way behind! A couple of faster laps and I finished rep one in 6.07. Wow, what a saga to get to this point!
Ok, on my rest lap I came up with a new plan - run the first lap in 2.02, the second in 2.00 and bring it home in 1.58. All sounds pretty easy. The next rep went fairly close to that plan and I closed with a 1.59 lap to finish in 6.01. I was very happy with this although I was stuffed! I crawled my way around the recovery lap and tried to pick it up again for rep three. This was a bit ugly and I did it in 6.07 - back where I started.
The cool down back to work was horrific. My calves were screaming in pain as they clearly had not enjoyed this session. I suspect they are still in revolt after last Monday's track session. Perhaps they knew they were back at the scene of the crime! Time for an easy day.
It was a plain and simple set: 3x 1600m in 6.11 min with a 400m RI. If done on a regular aths track, no problemo, 4 laps plus 1 lap! When done at Olympic Park, however, it requires far more maths. Not difficult maths, but some. And when you head off for a run and you haven't even thought about the maths you are courting problems, as I was soon to discover.
For this track is ~520m around, a completely irregular distance of ever one was concocted. So, whilst heading down the hill to the track I began to work out what a 6.11min/1600m was for three laps of this track. Which was all fine except in my head 3x520=1660 and not 1560. Proudly, I worked out that 60m meant about 12 sec extra per rep; so when I started off I had a time of 6.23 for three laps in my head - let's call it 2.07 min/lap and be done with it I thought!
Now, if you haven't gone to sleep or clicked to another web page somewhere, you'll realise this was completely screwy. But I started my laps blissfully ignorant of the error. On the positive side, I was consciously holding back for the first lap, wanting to pick up the pace for each of the three laps rather than go out fast and die. So when I rounded a fairly conservative lap one and saw 2.04 on my watch I knew something was amiss. These times would not be easy and I knew I wasn't running this well. (See only took me 520m to work this out!)
Some very quick maths ensued and I realised I had stuffed the calculations completely. Doh! I quickly established a new target of 6.00 min even for the 1560m, though I now know the correct target was 6.02! Anyway, 6 min it was which meant 2 min/lap which meant I was way behind! A couple of faster laps and I finished rep one in 6.07. Wow, what a saga to get to this point!
Ok, on my rest lap I came up with a new plan - run the first lap in 2.02, the second in 2.00 and bring it home in 1.58. All sounds pretty easy. The next rep went fairly close to that plan and I closed with a 1.59 lap to finish in 6.01. I was very happy with this although I was stuffed! I crawled my way around the recovery lap and tried to pick it up again for rep three. This was a bit ugly and I did it in 6.07 - back where I started.
The cool down back to work was horrific. My calves were screaming in pain as they clearly had not enjoyed this session. I suspect they are still in revolt after last Monday's track session. Perhaps they knew they were back at the scene of the crime! Time for an easy day.
I also think I need to revisit my target times. The Furman plan is very hard on these short sprints and I find them way too hard. McMillan gives a range of times and even the fastest is slower than the Furman suggestions. These work much better for me!
Wednesday 29 July
Back to Nike Run Club tonight and I opted for a shorter 5k run as I wanted to rest my legs a little. I really enjoyed this 5m30s pace group as we trundled around the Yarra and Olympic Park environs. Each week we are also including the "magic mile" (at least that's what I call it) where we encourage our runners to "Find their Fast" and go for it! Today this group was really quick, running more than 30 sec ahead of their pace group speed. I was such a proud run leader :-)
Thursday 30 July
Due to the ongoing path works near Chapel Street I shortened the warm up to 1km so that I'd be well finished my fast bit before getting to the road crossing. Of course, since I'd be running fast, I extended the fast bit to near 7k so that I could have a go at my 'CR' time on a favourite Strava segment. An extra fast km never hurt anyone, did it?
In keeping with my mantra for the week of "build" I was careful not to overextend early. The first 3k are mostly sheltered and offer a bit of a cross tailwind so I was careful not to get carried away here. I did these k's in 4.05, 4.03 and 4.12 for the one that ends with some uphill. So far so good. I was feeling in control. The last couple of k's are a mix of uphill, downhill, headwind and tailwind - pretty much everything - and I ran these in 4.13 and 4.07 which is ok but not fast. This gave me a 5k split of 20.40 (4.08 pace) which was pretty good! I continued on for my Strava segment, covering this only 5 sec outside my best time which was done just before the Gold Coast Marathon last year when I was in great form and on a great day. Very pleasing!!
I finished a total of 6k hard in 4.10 pace which is ace and continued on for the 10k run into a light drizzle and nasty wind. A good run, very happy with this!
Sunday 2 August
The last run of the week and the big one, my long run. The weather yesterday morning was forecast to be rain and wind, so I went for a ride and deferred the long run till today. As it turned out, the rain disappeared by mid-morning yesterday and by today the wind had picked up so it was probably worse. Aargh! Oh well, that's life in a Melbourne winter. It's going to be windy. I remember back in 2009 it was really windy for almost every long run and on race day it was perfect. I hope for much the same this year!
Today's loop was once again down to the beach then south along the shore to Parkdale, before returning inland via Nepean Highway and Chesterville Road. The target pace was 5.04m/k but I intended to run a bit quicker than this and try be around 5m/k if I could. I was right onto the pace from early on and kept it fairly even at 4.55-5.00 for the first 20k down to Parkdale. This was the easier part of the run, I knew it would be harder slightly uphill and into the wind on the return.
I worked hard and ran these in about 5.00-5.08. I was tired, and y left knee was feeling a bit sore, but I was not overly fatigued. Once again I had three gels - one just as I started then two more at 60min and 100min into the run. These worked well. Coming up the last km I was even able to lift the pace slightly to get back to an average of 4.59m/k for the run. Very pleasing!!
Training Program:
Full session details for my whole training plan here.
Strava links for the week:
Tuesday - Three More Miles 9k @4.48; incl. 3x 1560m @6.08/01/07.
Wednesday - Nike Run Club 4.9k @5.24; easy with magic mile.
Thursday - Flippin' Windy 5 (and a bit) 10.4k @4.33; incl. 5k @4.08 (6k @4.10)
Sunday - It's a bit ... windy! 29k @4.59; strong long run in windy conditions
Summary:
Week 5 of 16 (this week): 4 runs, 53.3 km, 4 hrs 21 mins
Week 4 of 16: 5 runs, 65.8 km, 5 hrs 38 mins
Week 3 of 16: 4 runs, 58.3 km, 4 hrs 46 mins
Week 2 of 16: 4 runs, 52.4 km, 4 hrs 30 mins
Week 1 of 16: 4 runs, 50.1 km, 4 hrs 11 mins
Total: 21 runs, 279.7 km, 23 hrs 27 mins
Full session details for my whole training plan here.
Strava links for the week:
Tuesday - Three More Miles 9k @4.48; incl. 3x 1560m @6.08/01/07.
Wednesday - Nike Run Club 4.9k @5.24; easy with magic mile.
Thursday - Flippin' Windy 5 (and a bit) 10.4k @4.33; incl. 5k @4.08 (6k @4.10)
Sunday - It's a bit ... windy! 29k @4.59; strong long run in windy conditions
Summary:
Week 5 of 16 (this week): 4 runs, 53.3 km, 4 hrs 21 mins
Week 4 of 16: 5 runs, 65.8 km, 5 hrs 38 mins
Week 3 of 16: 4 runs, 58.3 km, 4 hrs 46 mins
Week 2 of 16: 4 runs, 52.4 km, 4 hrs 30 mins
Week 1 of 16: 4 runs, 50.1 km, 4 hrs 11 mins
Total: 21 runs, 279.7 km, 23 hrs 27 mins
No comments:
Post a Comment