Week 4 of 13/15 Marathon Training

Monday:
AM -- 2.5k up, drills + 1k worth of strides/jog; Combo fartlek 2x5mins + 10mins of 15-90 secs hard + 10mins tempo; woke up too late at 6am, decided to do unstructured fartlek because I was tight on time - 1k down. Total 13k
splits:
- 2 x 5mins @ 3.45-3.49 min/km with 2mins jog in-between on grass (Padang)
- 1/2 Mona - 1x90, 2x60, 2x30, 2x15 with equal jog recovery (not float), also on grass, 2mins jog
- 10mins tempo @ 4.01 min/km, running along Singapore River concrete path back home
Total fartlek 8.5k in 36mins (av 4.14) including recovery jogs

PM -- 5k recovery treadmill (5.46), 10mins gym work

Tuesday:
10k easy in 54 (5.23), Keppel Marina 1k loop

Wednesday:
18k long run in 91 (5.04) - first 12k around 5.10 pace undulating route (Nassem Hill, Dalvey Estate, Nassem Rd), last 6k moderate at 4.48

Thursday:
AM -- 10k easy in 53+ (5.21), treadmill
PM -- core session

Friday:
8.5k fartlek in 40 (4.45) including 4*3mins ON, 90secs OFF, Keppel Marina

Saturday
6.5k easy in 34 (5.15), Singapore River

Sunday
3k warm up, Run350 10K race in 40.21 (10.15k by Garmin, passed 10k in 39.56) - ranked 24, 4k cool down. Total 17k

Total 88k for the week

Week in Summary:

A so-so week, ended with another shitty race performance. Was in two minds as to taper for the race or just trained through it. At the end, I decided to do normal training and only tapered in last couple of days by virtue of skipping Saturday's long run. Was hoping to run somewhere between 38-39mins but I was really woeful today. The morning was super duper warm with 80% humidity. There was also no cloud cover (UV index of 12), hence I was melting under the sun. I usually train before sunrise (5 or 6am) and reach home by 7.30. Today the race started at 7.30 - which is way too warm for my liking.

The route information was a bit misleading. On paper, it looked like a fast course but unfortunately, the race organizer didn't close the road/traffic, so we all ended up running mostly on pedestrian walk. For strange reasons, the F1 track was not even used by the race organizer, and the route included a loop around the F1 car park, an underground carpark tunnel, and also a staircase in KM2 climbing into the Helix Bridge.

My splits for the first 5k were 3.51, 3.56 (staircase), 3.58, 3.56 (tunnel), 3.57 = 19.37, so at this point, I knew the race was gone. I was sweating intensely - my eyes were red due to the sweat and my shoes made annoying squeaking sound. When I saw the Kallang river, I felt like jumping into it in order to cool myself. I felt I had enough and I then decided to 'tempo' the remaining 5k, so that I could recover quickly and continue normal training next week. The next 5k splits were 4.07, 4.08, 4.03, 4.06, 3.54 = 39.56 by Garmin + 27secs for the extra 150m. Therefore, a positive split of 19.37 (hard effort) + 20.19 (tempo effort)

Av HR was 171 or around 88% Max, which is my normal tempo HR. Only reached a peak of 184 bpm during the race (vs 195 bpm Max)

Despite the crappy performance, I have to continue thinking positively. I always suck at racing and always rely more on the quality of my workouts. My training has been good over the last 4 months - mileages were 92, 88, 98, and 88 so about 90+ kmpw on average, so pretty consistent. For what it's worth, I ran a 41+ min 10k in Passion Run 2009 and a couple of months later ran 3.04 in Gold Coast.

I just saw the 'once in a lifetime' weather forecast for Boston marathon. With a 30 km/h tail wind all the way from start to finish, I am waiting to see the results - 2.4x for Rob and Craig and 2.5x for Ronnie :)