Not a good week.
Caught a flu virus mid-week and felt unwell. Was knackered on Friday, took 1/2 day MC and anti-biotic. Felt better by Saturday arvo.
Unfortunately the week didn't end there as I had a race to do on Sunday. I registered for this 13k trail race long time ago because I thought this would be a good workout for Gold Coast Marathon in July. As you all know, Gold Coast is off from my calendar this year and instead I did Seoul Marathon a month ago. Hence I was left with a race that I didn't really need to do. I tried to sell my slot in the local running forum at a steeply discounted price but nobody wanted it.
So, after two days of bed rests, I decided to do the race as a training run. Just took it easy all the way, walked the hill, chatted with a friend and finished in 67mins (av 5:10) pace. A pretty expensive outing for a training run !
Next week looks like a busy one at work with a possible business trip. Looking back, I reckoned that I was extremely lucky that I had about 2 months of uninterrupted training for Seoul. No sickness, no business trips, and work load was very light following the festive seasons (both year-end and Chinese new year in Feb) - all of which enabled me to train consistently. At my current shape, I think I would count myself lucky to run a 4:00 marathon !
If you guys follow this blog for the purpose to see me training, please look away now and check back 3 months before marathon date :p
Training this week:
Mon: 16k including 45mins @ 4:10
Tues: 40mins easy (av pace 5:26)
Wed: 40mins including 4x1min hills, 6x20sec hills (av 5:00)
Thu: 18k easy (av 4:57)
Fri: sick :(
Sat: sick :(
Sun: 16k incl F1 Nature Run 13k trail race in 1h07m (av 5:10 pace)
Total 66k for the week
25 April 2010
20 April 2010
Shout outs
A couple of quick shout-outs:
Congrats to Rob for the 3h.02m in Boston. What a great place to break your PB. Let's rock the 3-hour barrier together in Melbourne !!
And to Epi who finished in 3h01 coming out of knee surgey barely couple of months ago !
To SW - whose stable won the Australian national title for 5000m Men, as well as silver in 5000m Women
Also to Ronnie who got a big PB and BQ'ed in Nagano Marathon, Japan.
As for me, nothing much to shout about. Had a mediocre training week: 6 x 1k at 3:50 and 6k tempo on undulanting road at 4:10 - which were decent, but had a miserable long run. The muscles seem to lose their elasticity and stiffened a lot during long runs.
One month gone since Seoul and I think I am about 70-75% back. Hopefully things will pick up a notch this week.
Congrats to Rob for the 3h.02m in Boston. What a great place to break your PB. Let's rock the 3-hour barrier together in Melbourne !!
And to Epi who finished in 3h01 coming out of knee surgey barely couple of months ago !
To SW - whose stable won the Australian national title for 5000m Men, as well as silver in 5000m Women
Also to Ronnie who got a big PB and BQ'ed in Nagano Marathon, Japan.
As for me, nothing much to shout about. Had a mediocre training week: 6 x 1k at 3:50 and 6k tempo on undulanting road at 4:10 - which were decent, but had a miserable long run. The muscles seem to lose their elasticity and stiffened a lot during long runs.
One month gone since Seoul and I think I am about 70-75% back. Hopefully things will pick up a notch this week.
10 April 2010
Still toast
All the best to Craig and Rob who will be running Boston Marathon next week !
Rob - I think you have an excellent shot at sub-3 in Boston given how well you have trained over the last couple of months. Craig - hopefully your injury will come good by race day.
Here is a Ryan Hall video on the Boston course for some motivation :)
see here
The Seoul result means that I have qualified for Boston 2011, however I don't think we'll go there in the next few years. Not sure Sling Jr will enjoy the 20 hr flight! Furthermore, sub-3 is much higher on my scale of fixation a the moment. I think it's more fun to run Boston as a holiday marathon, enjoying the course and atmosphere.
On the training front, I seem to lose some juice this week. My legs feel dead and burning although I've ran quite little since the marathon 3 weeks ago.
Tuesday run turned out to be walk-run affair since it was a hot & stuffy day. Just had no desire to run. On Thursday I did 4 x 5mins at threshold pace and it was bloody hard. My av pace was 4:00-4:03 min/km, with 2min rec in between and HR in 170-183 range. In contrast, during the marathon prep, I did 6 x 5mins averaging 3:50s with only 1min jog, and HR was only around 170 and didn't climb above 180 at all. Thus, my threshold session this week was 10secs per km slower, with twice the length of rest time, but HR was 10 bpm higher!
Maybe this is a sign that I am still not 100% recovered from the marathon effort. To make things worse, I had an uncomfortable niggle in the ankle too. Possibly due to the jarring effect from wearing racing flats during the marathon.
Interestingly. I always have bad jinx after marathons. After running Joong-an Marathon in 2008, I jumped straight into training with a view of running a fast 10k the following month, but a week before the race I damaged my ankle ligament and was then out out action for 2 months. In 2009 after running Gold Coast, I jumped straight into hard training with a view to run a HM 1.5 months later. At the end, I completed the Army HM but only averaged at my marathon pace due to tired legs.
Let's hope the post-marathon curse will go away !
S: 40 mins (av 4:45) including 15 x 30secs on/off
M: 30 mins easy (av 5:30)
T: 60 mins run/walk (av pace 6:00+)
W: 35 mins easy (av 5:12)
T: 50 mins including 4 x 5mins @ 4:00, 2mins rec
F: off
S: 98 mins easy (av 4:55)
Rob - I think you have an excellent shot at sub-3 in Boston given how well you have trained over the last couple of months. Craig - hopefully your injury will come good by race day.
Here is a Ryan Hall video on the Boston course for some motivation :)
see here
The Seoul result means that I have qualified for Boston 2011, however I don't think we'll go there in the next few years. Not sure Sling Jr will enjoy the 20 hr flight! Furthermore, sub-3 is much higher on my scale of fixation a the moment. I think it's more fun to run Boston as a holiday marathon, enjoying the course and atmosphere.
On the training front, I seem to lose some juice this week. My legs feel dead and burning although I've ran quite little since the marathon 3 weeks ago.
Tuesday run turned out to be walk-run affair since it was a hot & stuffy day. Just had no desire to run. On Thursday I did 4 x 5mins at threshold pace and it was bloody hard. My av pace was 4:00-4:03 min/km, with 2min rec in between and HR in 170-183 range. In contrast, during the marathon prep, I did 6 x 5mins averaging 3:50s with only 1min jog, and HR was only around 170 and didn't climb above 180 at all. Thus, my threshold session this week was 10secs per km slower, with twice the length of rest time, but HR was 10 bpm higher!
Maybe this is a sign that I am still not 100% recovered from the marathon effort. To make things worse, I had an uncomfortable niggle in the ankle too. Possibly due to the jarring effect from wearing racing flats during the marathon.
Interestingly. I always have bad jinx after marathons. After running Joong-an Marathon in 2008, I jumped straight into training with a view of running a fast 10k the following month, but a week before the race I damaged my ankle ligament and was then out out action for 2 months. In 2009 after running Gold Coast, I jumped straight into hard training with a view to run a HM 1.5 months later. At the end, I completed the Army HM but only averaged at my marathon pace due to tired legs.
Let's hope the post-marathon curse will go away !
S: 40 mins (av 4:45) including 15 x 30secs on/off
M: 30 mins easy (av 5:30)
T: 60 mins run/walk (av pace 6:00+)
W: 35 mins easy (av 5:12)
T: 50 mins including 4 x 5mins @ 4:00, 2mins rec
F: off
S: 98 mins easy (av 4:55)
03 April 2010
Slackin'
Initially was keeping one eye on Perth Marathon on 20/06. But after doing some maths: 4 weeks to recover/re-build from Seoul, then another 6-7 weeks of training, I think the improvement from training is likely to be minimal due to the short, half-baked marathon prep again. Anyway, I've done too many 8 weeks marathon preps in my life!
Gold Coast in July is not an option due to my bro's wedding. So, that leaves Melbourne on 10/10/10 as the most viable option, six months way from now. Review from last year wasn't that great though, with lots of sub-3 and low 3 marathoners bumping in a great wall of HM/10k runners, so let's hope the organizer can fix that.
Plan to do some short races in the next 1-2 months. Hopefully, the racing and training will keep me to stay motivated. An October marathon is such a long way to go.
Anyway, running has been really minimal since the marathon. Took one week off after the race and started doing 30-40mins runs during the second week. SW seems to take marathon recovery seriously and honestly, I was a tad worried that I won't be able to leverage on the marathon fitness due to the lengthy period of inactivity.
It is surprising that although, I didn't feel wasted after the marathon, I found it hard to get going running in Singapore again. Legs were stiff and it was simply not fun to be drenched in sweat again. On Good Friday, I did 1hr+ run and it felt like I was doing a marathon.
Probably it's wise to take a longer post-race recovery this time since the marathon is still gonna be 6 months away. Past experience seemed to agree with this. Following last year's Gold Coast marathon, I did a 8k race just a few days later then jumped straight into 5 weeks of hard training to get ready for the Army HM. At the race, I could only run the HM at my GC's marathon pace !!
That's all folks - really nothing much to blog about this week. To close, here are a couple of photos from Seoul marathon:
This looks like a scene taken from 3000m race. But it's actually the last 300m of the marathon inside 1988 Olympic Stadium.
Starting marathon temperature was 0c. I hardly sweat at all - the wet marks on the front of the shirt was due to drinking water spill.
Gold Coast in July is not an option due to my bro's wedding. So, that leaves Melbourne on 10/10/10 as the most viable option, six months way from now. Review from last year wasn't that great though, with lots of sub-3 and low 3 marathoners bumping in a great wall of HM/10k runners, so let's hope the organizer can fix that.
Plan to do some short races in the next 1-2 months. Hopefully, the racing and training will keep me to stay motivated. An October marathon is such a long way to go.
Anyway, running has been really minimal since the marathon. Took one week off after the race and started doing 30-40mins runs during the second week. SW seems to take marathon recovery seriously and honestly, I was a tad worried that I won't be able to leverage on the marathon fitness due to the lengthy period of inactivity.
It is surprising that although, I didn't feel wasted after the marathon, I found it hard to get going running in Singapore again. Legs were stiff and it was simply not fun to be drenched in sweat again. On Good Friday, I did 1hr+ run and it felt like I was doing a marathon.
Probably it's wise to take a longer post-race recovery this time since the marathon is still gonna be 6 months away. Past experience seemed to agree with this. Following last year's Gold Coast marathon, I did a 8k race just a few days later then jumped straight into 5 weeks of hard training to get ready for the Army HM. At the race, I could only run the HM at my GC's marathon pace !!
That's all folks - really nothing much to blog about this week. To close, here are a couple of photos from Seoul marathon:
This looks like a scene taken from 3000m race. But it's actually the last 300m of the marathon inside 1988 Olympic Stadium.
Starting marathon temperature was 0c. I hardly sweat at all - the wet marks on the front of the shirt was due to drinking water spill.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)