The 5th of 18 Weeks
The fifth week of the marathon training plan went like this:
Monday: OFF or 10k E. Drove back the night before to the cottage to start my one week off from work. Didn't bother waking up early, just let my body decide what time to wake up. In the end I didn't get out the door until 9am, which was fine. Not too hot and slightly misty at one point. Found a loop on a residential street tucked into the woods that was almost 1km long and fairly flat so perfect for repeats and perhaps even a Tempo effort. In the end I managed 10k E at 5:25/km and called it a successful start to week 5.
Tuesday: 8k E or 5x1000m. The month of June is now complete and I am quite pleased to have not missed any runs at all and amassed a decent total of 245.7km. This morning was the final effort of the month and I jogged over to that residential loop that I'd discovered the day before for my 5x1km repeats with 400m recovery. Definitely feeling the cumulative fatigue of the training plan I was a bit concerned with how these intervals would go, but I also realized that I will have nerves such as these before every key workout. Just have to work at not worrying so much. In any case, after the warm up jog I stopped on the side of the road for a minute to stretch out and then before my brain could talk me out of starting I hit the start button on my watch and off I went. The repeats were made tougher than anticipated by a section of the loop with a slight incline, which felt bigger and bigger with every repeat. I had to walk a bit after each hard section as I was definitely pushing it to stay on pace. In the end my repeats were pretty consistent coming in at 4:08.2, 4:06.9, 4:06.5, 4:05.3, and 4:05.3 for an average pace of 4:06.44/km. Not bad! The total was 11k SP at 5:39/km. As the overall average shows I took it real easy on the sections in and around the hard repeats. Hopefully July will prove as positive in training terms as June has.
Wednesday: OFF. Took the whole day off, other than playing baseball with the boys a couple of times in Stirling. Needed it, though the diet could have been a lot better. Oh well. Such is vacation...
Thursday: 7k E or 10k T. This tempo run was a very tough test as I came into it with not that much energy (likely as a result of the poor diet while on vacation at the cottage). The legs definitely had that fatigue in them that I think is the point of the marathon training plan as the fifth week rolls along. I jogged two kilometres to the spot where I would run laps and loops on a relatively flat area, which is in short supply around the lake. Then as I started into the first kilometre of the 10k tempo portion I knew right away that this would be a battle all the way. More than a few times I talked myself out of stopping for a break and was quite pleased to have completed the entire tempo portion without a stop. My goal was 4:45/km, but I had run two of these workouts in the past two weeks and both were quite a bit faster than that. When I hit the first split at 4:46.1 I knew I was in for a fight. After that it was just trying to maintain something resembling relaxed form and normal breathing as I hit splits of 4:44.6, 4:44.4, 4:45.7, 4:47.8 (ouch, this one ended on an uphill and I just couldn't keep it loose and maintain pace), 4:43.4, 4:45.2, 4:46.1, 4:39.7, 4:37.8. I clearly knew the end was imminent with those last two splits... The average for the tempo portion ended up at 4:44.08/km and I was very happy with that result. The whole run ended up being 14k T at 4:58/km.
Friday: 8-12k E. After that tough Tempo effort the day before, and a weird pain in my right ankle (i.e. the wonky one) from cracking it in the middle of the night, something I do all the time that doesn't bother me at all, I was apprehensive of what the easy run would bring. Got out the door really late (9:30am), and started really slow. As I ran things loosened up and I felt better. In fact, I was likely running a bit too fast in the second half of the run, but the effort remained consistent so either the Garmin was way off or I am starting to see the benefits of this training plan in my easy pace. In the end I managed 8k E at 5:15/km.
Saturday: 7-10k E. Similar to the effort the day before, I started out late (9:10am), got into the run slowly, and finished faster than I thought I would given how I was feeling after a very lovely, but long and draining, day at the beach. I managed a nice 7k E at 5:12/km and kept things as easy as I could in anticipation of the 20k run to come, the longest of the plan so far and longest for me since Easter.
Sunday: 10k E or 20k L. Made it out slightly earlier than other days during the vacation at the cottage, but still not very early at all (8:41am). The weather was already hot and sunny so for the first time I carried a small bottle of water with me. First half of the run was mostly descending, which meant that the second half was mostly ascending. Stopped every 5k for a drink, but even when the going got tough in the last 5k and I had visions of stopping a few times I never did. In the end I managed 20k L at 5:19/km and all told it was a successful run. Sat in the lake for a bit right afterwards cooling down. Now back home and back to reality as vacation is over :(
Total for the week: 70 km at 5:19/km average pace.
Monday: OFF or 10k E. Drove back the night before to the cottage to start my one week off from work. Didn't bother waking up early, just let my body decide what time to wake up. In the end I didn't get out the door until 9am, which was fine. Not too hot and slightly misty at one point. Found a loop on a residential street tucked into the woods that was almost 1km long and fairly flat so perfect for repeats and perhaps even a Tempo effort. In the end I managed 10k E at 5:25/km and called it a successful start to week 5.
Tuesday: 8k E or 5x1000m. The month of June is now complete and I am quite pleased to have not missed any runs at all and amassed a decent total of 245.7km. This morning was the final effort of the month and I jogged over to that residential loop that I'd discovered the day before for my 5x1km repeats with 400m recovery. Definitely feeling the cumulative fatigue of the training plan I was a bit concerned with how these intervals would go, but I also realized that I will have nerves such as these before every key workout. Just have to work at not worrying so much. In any case, after the warm up jog I stopped on the side of the road for a minute to stretch out and then before my brain could talk me out of starting I hit the start button on my watch and off I went. The repeats were made tougher than anticipated by a section of the loop with a slight incline, which felt bigger and bigger with every repeat. I had to walk a bit after each hard section as I was definitely pushing it to stay on pace. In the end my repeats were pretty consistent coming in at 4:08.2, 4:06.9, 4:06.5, 4:05.3, and 4:05.3 for an average pace of 4:06.44/km. Not bad! The total was 11k SP at 5:39/km. As the overall average shows I took it real easy on the sections in and around the hard repeats. Hopefully July will prove as positive in training terms as June has.
Wednesday: OFF. Took the whole day off, other than playing baseball with the boys a couple of times in Stirling. Needed it, though the diet could have been a lot better. Oh well. Such is vacation...
Thursday: 7k E or 10k T. This tempo run was a very tough test as I came into it with not that much energy (likely as a result of the poor diet while on vacation at the cottage). The legs definitely had that fatigue in them that I think is the point of the marathon training plan as the fifth week rolls along. I jogged two kilometres to the spot where I would run laps and loops on a relatively flat area, which is in short supply around the lake. Then as I started into the first kilometre of the 10k tempo portion I knew right away that this would be a battle all the way. More than a few times I talked myself out of stopping for a break and was quite pleased to have completed the entire tempo portion without a stop. My goal was 4:45/km, but I had run two of these workouts in the past two weeks and both were quite a bit faster than that. When I hit the first split at 4:46.1 I knew I was in for a fight. After that it was just trying to maintain something resembling relaxed form and normal breathing as I hit splits of 4:44.6, 4:44.4, 4:45.7, 4:47.8 (ouch, this one ended on an uphill and I just couldn't keep it loose and maintain pace), 4:43.4, 4:45.2, 4:46.1, 4:39.7, 4:37.8. I clearly knew the end was imminent with those last two splits... The average for the tempo portion ended up at 4:44.08/km and I was very happy with that result. The whole run ended up being 14k T at 4:58/km.
Friday: 8-12k E. After that tough Tempo effort the day before, and a weird pain in my right ankle (i.e. the wonky one) from cracking it in the middle of the night, something I do all the time that doesn't bother me at all, I was apprehensive of what the easy run would bring. Got out the door really late (9:30am), and started really slow. As I ran things loosened up and I felt better. In fact, I was likely running a bit too fast in the second half of the run, but the effort remained consistent so either the Garmin was way off or I am starting to see the benefits of this training plan in my easy pace. In the end I managed 8k E at 5:15/km.
Saturday: 7-10k E. Similar to the effort the day before, I started out late (9:10am), got into the run slowly, and finished faster than I thought I would given how I was feeling after a very lovely, but long and draining, day at the beach. I managed a nice 7k E at 5:12/km and kept things as easy as I could in anticipation of the 20k run to come, the longest of the plan so far and longest for me since Easter.
Sunday: 10k E or 20k L. Made it out slightly earlier than other days during the vacation at the cottage, but still not very early at all (8:41am). The weather was already hot and sunny so for the first time I carried a small bottle of water with me. First half of the run was mostly descending, which meant that the second half was mostly ascending. Stopped every 5k for a drink, but even when the going got tough in the last 5k and I had visions of stopping a few times I never did. In the end I managed 20k L at 5:19/km and all told it was a successful run. Sat in the lake for a bit right afterwards cooling down. Now back home and back to reality as vacation is over :(
Total for the week: 70 km at 5:19/km average pace.
Labels: marathon training 2015, running
posted by Vava at
12:21 PM
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