04 September 2011

:(

Mon (29 Aug):
7k recovery run (av 5.30)
Heavy leg from yesterday's long run. Did half of the run on 250m grass field.

Tue (30 Aug):
15mins warm up, strides
Intervals @ CCAB track
1600m (6:07), 2mins jog, 1000m (3.47), 2mins jog, 400m (1.27), 3mins jog
1600m (6.14), 2mins jog, 1000m (3.48), 2mins jog, 400m (1.27), 5mins jog
5*200m (39, 41, 40, 41, 37), 200m jog
10mins cool down
Total 15k

Legs felt a bit heavy. I guessed I have yet to fully recover from the 33k outing 2 days ago. Legs just didn't have a lot of pop this morning. All the warm up, recovery between intervals, and cool down were done by circling the soccer field, hence today I ran a full 15k without putting my foot on asphalt. Cadences were 200 strides per minute for the 400-1600s intervals and around 210 for the 200s.

Wed (31 Aug)
7k recovery run (av 5.37)

Thu (1 Sep)
16k run with fartlek (av 5.05)

Sprinkled 5* 40secs hill sprints, 3* 400m hill repeats, 4* 20secs grass strides, and a couple of MP effort kms into today's run. Was suprised to see the average pace for the run was a wee slow at 5+ min/km given I did some fast running here and there. I guessed I am just slow.

Fri (2 Sep)
AM 6k recovery (av 5.40), treadmill
PM 6k easy on grass (av 5.10)

Sat (3 Sep)
OFF. But went out with family & friends for 12 hours, from breakfast to dinner, all over Singapore

Sun (4 Sep)
4.30am 2.5k warm up
5.15am SAFRA Half Marathon 90.14 (GPS distance 20.4)
7.30am 7k cool down jog
Total 30k (not continuous)

Total 87k for the week

My slowest Army HM timing ever!! (my times were never good anyway, but today was awful).

Even from the start, I knew that it's gonna be a tough day at the office. Felt sluggish, probably a combination of no taper and a long outing yesterday (driving around SG for gourmet hunting). Legs didn't have a lot of pop, felt stiff and were not fluid.

I also over-estimated my fitness level! I thought that even with normal training (no taper), I should be okay to complete a HM at around 4.15 min/km but sadly that proved to be a wishful thinking. Averaged around 4.15 pace for the first 10k, but found the pace too rough for today. I was basically done at that point! Decided to run at more comfortable effort for the remainder of the HM and ended up averaging 4.26 min/km. That's even slower than my actual marathon pace for my last 2 completed marathons in Gold Coast and Seoul :(

Only 5 weeks left to Melbourne and I think I might be struggling to run a decent time. The only good thing is that by not digging too deep today, I think I can resume workouts in about couple of days. Will see what happens in the next couple of weeks to decide a proper marathon time goal.

I also notice that my training nowadays has a trend akin to mood swings. One week great, the next week is full of crap. Don't know why but I am certainly not a man I was before.

1 comment:

Ewen said...

I'd say between now and Melbourne don't try and cram too much in (or catch up fitness) - just try for consistency and undertrain rather than overtrain. Two easy days between harder sessions.

In general, I'd say consistency is what you should be aiming at - pick a mileage volume that's doable and hold that while making slight modifications to sessions.