29 May 2011

Week 10 of 13

3 weeks left !!!

Monday:
9k+ easy in 50 (av 5.30), treadmill

Tuesday:
15k easy in 1h20m (av 5.20), Singapore River

Wanted to do a speed session, but body wasn't ready! Legs like lead and had no strength.

Wednesday:
9.5k easy in 50 (av 5.16), Keppel Marina 1k loop, included 6 strides

Thursday:
3k warm up with strides
Fartlek (padang cricket field)
3 x 800m @ 10k effort (90secs rec) + 1600m @ HM effort (90secs red)
3k cool down
Total 15k in 71 (4.44)

Did the workout on grass in order to reduce the stress on tibia. Tried to do a minimum of 4 sets. but stopped after 3. My legs were like lead and 10k and HM paces were slower by about 5-10secs per km!

Friday:
35mins recovery (5.42), treadmill

Saturday:
15k easy in 76+ (5.06)

An aborted long run. Super humid weather and my legs are still toast. Decided to cut my losses.

Sunday:
18k easy in 93 (5:10)

A re-dux long run, but legs still felt shitty. Felt lethargic, no strength at all and calf tendon was sore. Another stop loss

Total 88k for the week

Week in Summary:

A crap week. I only managed to do one workout and no long run! Legs were like lead and body felt knackered. Everytime I go out for the run, the shin bones were burning like hell. I had my tendon massaged and it was ok for a week, but it flared up again during the weekend. I think the cumulative pounding and fatique over this training cycle has trashed my muscles, connective tissues, and joints. The 'deal legs' feeling resulted in me doing lots of easy 5+ min pace this week.

My body was lethargic all week and seems to reject fast running at all. I eat meat regularly so I don't think my iron was lacking. Presumably doing ferritin test is too late at this stage with only 3 weeks to go. I think I simply get saturated with months and months of hot weather training. Frequent heatwaves and high humidity have taken their toll on my body. I am not recovering well on day to day basis.
I am contemplating to take a few rest days this week in order to let the body and legs recover. It's frustrating that I can't do hard sharpening workouts in a very critical period. And now there are only 3 weeks left !!!

To optimize whatever time left before the race, my plan is to do a down time this week, then training hard next week, and finally a very drastic taper during race week. Hopefully my training in the last 3 months are sufficient to allow me to still run a decent time. But first thing first, I need to find my legs and back !!!!!

2 comments:

Epi said...

What day do you get into Perth Sling? Would be nice to catch up for pre race pasta dinner

Ewen said...

Does sound like you need more easy days. When you're feeling OK try a workout. I like the idea of the late taper.