Sunday, June 28, 2015

The 4th of 18 Weeks

The fourth week of the marathon training plan went like this:

MondayOFF or 10k E. After a weekend of what I guess one may call cross training, but better referred to as "construction", the fourth week of the marathon training plan started off with those much sought after tired legs. Since the goal is to adjust to running on said tired legs I guess one must get these legs to the desired state and then run on them. Therefore, the trek continues with this in mind... Aware of tougher efforts to come later in the week the early morning meet up with a friend for an easy run was exactly what the doctor ordered: EASY. I asked if my friend minded slowing down and he said no, so we managed 10k E at 5:55/km pace and that was that. Finally an easy run executed properly! At lunch I made it to the gym for a now regular running specific strength training session and a decent amount of rolling and stretching. Maintenance is key.

Tuesday8k E or 6x800m. Boy, this cumulative fatigue effect on the legs that is supposed to be the heart and soul of the Hanson's Marathon Method sure is as advertised! After a restless night due to thunderstorms keeping me awake, I was not feeling energetic as I set off for the track for the prescribed 6x800m repeats. Added to that was a tight left hamstring that seems to have resulted from sitting in an overheated and packed beyond capacity high school auditorium for three hours watching my son's grade 8 graduation ceremony. I told myself to "just get through it at the slowest pace allowed" and that this would still have the desired training effect. So I jogged very slowly and creakily the 2km to the track, stretched for a bit, and then set off on my repeats. The goal was to stay at 4:10/km pace or so, which is 3:20/800m. My Garmin watch was not measuring properly so although it showed that I was running at 4:09/km pace for the first two repeats the total for the two laps was too slow as the watch said I ran 820m. In the end I adjusted my pace to the length of the track and not what the watch was measuring and think I did OK. My 800m splits were: 3:23.6, 3:23.0, 3:20.8, 3:19.9, 3:17.7, 3:17.2. The average ended up at 3:20.36, so I think this can be considered a successful training session. My goal is to run these at 4:10/km pace, and this session averaged out at 4:10.45/km, so pretty darn close I think and close enough given the limitations of using a Garmin anyway. In the end I managed a total of 11k SP at 5:19/km. Before lunch I went to the gym for a full rolling and stretching session, with a bit of sauna thrown in for good measure. Definitely felt like I earned the mid-week OFF day...

Wednesday: OFF. A day of no running with all the proverbial crap hitting the spinning fan at work. Made it to a massage session, which was much needed for both the calves and traps. Also, at the end of the very stressful work day, I went to the gym and still managed to get my running specific strength training and some rolling and stretching done.

Thursday5k E or 10k T. The tempo run is always the start of the 6 days in a row of running block and I guess I can see why this training plan puts it after the off day: because it's challenging! Both mentally and physically I find these runs on the tough side and I keep wondering how I will be able to manage a full marathon at the prescribed pace of 4:45/km when I still haven't managed to "hit my stride" practicing this pace in training. However, I realize that today was just the second time running at PMP so there's lots of time to make it more routine. The trouble I had, yet again, was running a bit too fast. Not as bad as last week (when the average pace was 4:33.76/km), but still not close enough to the desired 4:45/km. Today the 10km at Tempo portion averaged out at 4:38.74/km and I managed a total of 13k T at 4:51/km. Things are trending in the right direction... At lunch time I was able to again go to the gym for a decent rolling and stretching routine. Never seem to get to this in the evenings so it's always good to get this done if possible during the day.

Friday5-10k E. It would have been nice to hit the single track trails again for the easy recovery run on a Friday morning, but feeling the effects of cumulative stress in the legs I decided to keep this to the flat sidewalks and ran a simple 5k E at 5:49/km. Once again at lunch time it was to the gym for some running specific strength training and a good bit of rolling and stretching.

Saturday8-13k E. Drove up to the cottage the night before and woke up with the sunrise so not exactly got to sleep in. Went out the door at about 7am for a nice jog around the lake with my wife and then set off on my own to complete the second half of my 8k E at 6:13/km run. First half was at her pace so it allowed me to practice my cadence while running at a slower pace, which was good. For the first time I did a decent job of it and kept my breathing from becoming too shallow. Rest of the day was spent finishing some construction before the rains came and we drove home through some nasty crap coming down.

Sunday8-14k E. The weather has turned to early November and I totally didn't feel like running in the crap and wind and cold so I joined my wife at the gym and managed 14k E at 5:29/km on the treadmill. This was boring, but necessary. Shortest Sunday run remaining on the schedule completed.

Total for the week: 61 km at 5:30/km average pace.

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