Week 10 of 12

Did 92k in 7.5 hours (av 4:55) during Week 10 of 12

Starting my taper now with 2 weeks to go. Really looking forward to longer sleep time from now on since I have been getting up at 4 or 5am on my workout days to avoid the heat. My plan for the taper is 70k next week then 40k during race week (pre-marathon).

One dilemma I have is that I have a 5k race next Sunday (registered and paid long time ago). I am not sure what kind of effort should I put in for the 5k since the marathon is only 7 days later. On one hand, 5k is a short race and recovery should be quick. Read that lots of old-school elites used to run 5k/10k a week before marathon as part of peaking, leg turnover workout and to dissipate some nerves (race practice) before the big day. On the flip side, I don’t want to jeopardize the marathon which of course is more important (and costly) race.

Most training programs typically schedule 18-21k long runs on Sunday to remind the body and maintain adaptations of long runs done over many weeks. I think this shouldn’t be a big issue since I can play around with the structure, such as doing 20k on Thurs/Fri, run the 5k on Sunday, and then do an easy 15k on Monday.

What do you guys think? Should I run the 5k race at:
a) Race effort (probably sub/low 19 for the 5k)
b) VO2max workout: 3 x 1600m at 5k pace, 400m jog
c) Controlled effort: 10k pace (probably under 20 for the 5k)
d) Semi-controlled effort: 4k at 10k pace, last 1.5k hard/all out
(actual distance seems to be about 5.5k according to mapmyrun)


Training this week:

Mon (Intervals):
16k run in 72mins (av 4:32) consisting of
- Warm up + strides
- 3 x 1600 @ Threshold in 6:20, 6:20, 6:20 (av 3:58 min/km)
- 3 x 800 @ 5k pace in 3:01, 3:00, 2:59 (av 3:45 min/km)
- 3 x 400 @ 2k-3k pace in 65, 64, 61 (av 3:28 min/km)
- Cool down

Ran in the evening to give extra few hours of recovery. The SMU track was full of school kids; hence some of the splits were couple of seconds slower due to the traffic. Recovery was 90secs walk after each rep and 3mins after each set. Compared to the same workout a month ago, the 1600s were a couple of seconds per k slower while the pace for 800s/400s was similar. Pretty happy with the effort considering I did a 36k long run two days earlier.

Tue (Easy):
AM: 30mins elliptical + 30mins stretching
PM: 5k Recovery (av 5:40)

Wed (Easy):
11k Easy (av 5:10), 4 strides

Thu (MP tempo):
20k run in 93mns (av 4:39) incl 14k @ 4:24 min/km

One final engine test at goal MP with 17 days to go before the D-day. Covered 1/3 of marathon distance in 61:32 (av 4:24) without stopping on flat terrain. Average HR was 161, max 177. I did an exactly similar test run before Seoul Marathon last year in 61:47, av HR 162, max 170. Hence, today’s run was 1sec/km faster with 1bpm lower average HR, albeit higher HR at the end. Also did 4 x 25secs hill during warm down.

Fri (Off):
Off, 30mins pilates

Sat (Long Run):
27.5k in 2h:12 (av 4:47 min/km)

Started with 3k slow warm up (5:18), then ran 16k at MP + 10% (4:40-4:45) to get sufficiently tired. After arriving at the track, did 4 x 1000m intervals at HM pace (4:07, 4:06, 4:07, 4:03), jogging 200m. Despite the intervals being only at HM pace, I found the change in gear to be pretty hard, but maybe that’s because after 90 minutes of moderate-paced running. Finished the run with 4 x 100m strides and slow cool down jog.

Sun (Easy):
6.5k Recovery (av 5:30), gravel/sand surface

Total 92k for the week, 990k in the last 10 weeks (av 14k per day)