09 April 2009

Skeleton

Did a total 213k over the last 30 days in Melbourne, running 2-3 times a week. Will be flying back to Singapore next week. Wife and baby will stay in Melbourne until around July.

From next week, there are 12 weeks of full-throtle training until the marathon. With this in mind, this week I structure my training as skeletons for the actual marathon training. Basically it consists of core workouts without daily aerobic fillers (easy runs). Once I start the marathon training proper, then the rest days will be filled by aerobic runs since mileage is an important component for marathon.

Despite the cool climate, I haven't had the opportunity to do any tough & challenging workouts. Only slept around 4 hours on average, so my body wasn't really primed to handle a lot of training stress. So far, the sessions have been pretty mild in terms of intensity - just enough to maintain fitness. One good thing is that I have built my long runs to around 30k (today did 31k long run av 4:48 pace), which hopefully will bode well for the next 12 weeks of training. Will be interesting to see how my long run pace will start to decrease once I am back in Singapore.

My plan is to spend 2-3 weeks to get used to running 7 days a week again and build mileage to around 80-100k. Then I will focus on marathon specific sessions for the next 7-8 weeks before finally a 2-week taper.

Also, good luck to Epi who will be gunning for sub-3 in Canberra next Sunday.

Anyway, this week's training 'skeleton' as follows:

04/04: 19k Medium Long Run @ 4:50 av pace
06/04: 5k Tempo on grass @ 4:03 pace, 4 x 500m (1:52, 53, 53, 47), 10 x 10secs hill sprints
08/04: 13k Rolling Hills @ 4:30 av pace
10/04: 31k Long Run @ 4:48 pace

Total 76k for the week (in 4 runs)

5 comments:

by7 said...

wow... it will be tough to stay away from the family (or better... they stay away...)
but you can turn "PRO" for these months and build up a huge fitness for the marathon.
Maybe you should target to run twice a day, short and quick runs. So you will be less affected by the heat and build stamina without losing all your energies for the heat.
Personally I noticed that at 30C/90%rh I can make a decent run for no longer than 40' and then slow down inesorably.
If I can manage, for this year I will try to run shorter (max 50', down from the usual 1h10') and maybe add some doubles to keep the total volume up (provided I can carve the time...)

tbz (sgrunners) said...

Hello Sling!!

Good to see that you have been working hard at your training runs and spending time with your family ^_^ But i do recommend you inserting a rest day within your 7 days (although high volume of running is for maintenance & form check ^_^).At least in Melbourne,there is good weather,unlike here in Singapore where the weather is getting hotter O_O

Anyway,which marathon will be you most likely doing?Gold Coast or Perth?

trailblazer777 said...

Great weeks training there...awesome. The 31k especially, and the 500's are good too. Those first few weeks are so important, and demanding with a new baby.
Hope you will all be together again soon, and all the best with ramping up the training!

Clown said...

Good stuff Sling, you've got a pretty good base there and should find the buildup to peak mileage pretty easy.

Ewen said...

76k is a pretty solid 'skeleton'! Good pace on the long run.

In the humidity/heat the long run pace will suffer. Maybe you could cut it down a bit (27-28k?) and do 'back-to-backs' for endurance?