Week 5 – Easy Week

Week 5 – Easy Week

Monday. Tempo run  14.14km. 58:29.83, 4:08 km minute pace. No HRM
Tuesday. Warmup, Intervals 6 x 3 mins.  19.6km. 1:27.29, overall 4:30 km minute pace, intervals 3:40 km pace. 168 BPM
Wednesday. Hills. 21.72km. 1:44:27. 8 x Hill Reps avg 4:28 laps. 160 BPM
Friday. Hills 21.85km. 1:35:18.  8 x Hill reps avg 4:09 laps. 175 BPM

Total mileage: 77.32km / 48.05 miles

Monday was time constrained (see below for more detail)  so it was just a case of getting out there in the hour I had and making as best use of it as possible.  Felt generally good, but in the rush to get out I forgot my Heart rate monitor so was running blind.  I’ve had periods when I needed to change the battery where I trained fine without a HRM, but generally I think it gives a very useful dimension on how hard you pushed on a run so I try to wear it for the key sessions.  Its also a sign of fitness that you can run at the same pace as previously at a lower Heart Rate.

Tuesday – Usual Interval day with a longish warmup.  The idea is that pushing my legs whilst tired will mimic what is required in the second half of a marathon.  The 3 minute interval pace was ok the second half was into the wind so I slowed a bit on that.  3 minute intervals are slightly faster than the previous week but not much considering we did 2 less.

Wednesday – Hill Session.  Met up with a fellow runner and have a good chit chat out and back.  I get dropped on all the ascents but make it up on the descents, was a good overall speed.  This session isn’t like the popular Kenyan Hills session as my focus is for the entire lap (I run it fast up and fast down the hill).  The more I read into it, the more I think it could be useful to do it the Kenyan way (ie flat out up, very slow down) so I might try that at some point.

Friday – Hill Session.  This is the exact same session as Wednesday, with the benefit of new trainers and fresher legs.  I do this session on my own.  My personal best for this session was previously 1:37ish so I go significantly faster today.  There was a couple of reasons for this:  On the way out to the hills a runner appears from the side along a stretch of the canal, as we come up to a section where its one abreast only.  So I make a quick decision to nail this guy while I can, this happens fairly often but today I got unlucky (or lucky??) as the guy that pulled out of no where is actually a very good runner and stays on my tail.  I generally make of point of only overtaking in a race or training when you know you can make it stick,  that’s partially pride but also I don’t want to hold up or feel like I’m holding up another runner if I cant maintain the pace.  So my initial reaction is up the pace and try and drop him, so I knock out a 3:41 km, it didn’t work he is still on my tail.  So I hold the pace for another 500 metres before deciding to let him go, he overtakes me and I finish that KM at 3:58.  He pulls away a bit but we both settle into a 4:11 km pace and maintain the distance for the next km.  So assuming that 4:11 is the pace I would have done I gained about 40 seconds there.  So basically we paced off each other and helped spice up our runs – not a bad thing.  I get overtaken quite a bit whilst out running, sometimes I tag on but most of the time I don’t.  Sometimes you can have fun at another runners expense (I guess like the other guy on the canal) when if you get overtaken whilst your on a easy run, you can change pace and make them suffer for a bit before they finally give up.  This is especially fun if its obvious that the person has had to put in a lot of effort to overtake.  I would say its all fun though as running a bit faster than you intended isn’t bad for anyone.  So I arrive at the park in my new Trainers, my old trainers are I think 5 years old and probably have several thousand miles on them and hence not much grip.  I have to stop for 2 minutes to adjust the laces but stop my stop watch (cheating ?  I left it running for say 30 secs though)  On the old trainers I have to be careful on the steep descents due to lack of grip- no such problems on the new ones.  So overall I’m lapping quite a bit faster than usual, my final blast lap is a 3:58 lap.  A quick break then return back to base, with a good pace as I am  keen to record a new personal best.  So overall a good session, with a new significant pb, however it doesn’t count as much due to outside pacing, new trainers  and fresh legs.  If I can ever average less than 4 minutes for the hill session I will know I am in very good form.

This weeks title is “Easy Week”, this is a cop out.  I generally don’t do easy weeks except for tapering for big races.  The way things worked out this week I didn’t have as much time for running.  On Monday for example I had to be back for 1pm for a meeting, when I got back the meeting was cancelled.  I thought long and hard about going back out and doing another session, but in the end I couldn’t be bothered.  On Thursday I had an appointment in my usual running time, so I didn’t go out.  It would have been possible to get a run in early in the morning or late in the evening but its not really convenient to run where I live in the Dark.  I’m happy to put this week behind me, but they are not acceptable excuses for later on in the training programme when things get critical. 

Overall this week wasn’t a total disaster, as I managed a PB on my benchmark run.  So every reason to indicate that things are on track and I have a great chance of being in my best shape ever for the London Marathon.