Week beginning Oct 31
M: Off
T: Threshold 3*2mile @ 3.58 min/km, 2mins walk rest - splits 12.40, 12.38, 12.40 but I cheated for the last rep by taking a brief break after a mile; Total 15k with warm up and cool down
W: 65mins easy (5.25)
T: Intervals 7*600m, 200min jog with a friend. The plan was 8*600 @ 85s/lap but I got stuffed after 6th, skipped the 7th, and rejoined him for the 8th -splits 2.10, 2.10, 2.08, 2.11, 2.11, canned, 2.05; ended up averaging 87s/lap (~3.37 min/km).
F: 40mins very easy (5.40)
S: 90mins easy (5.00)
Total 60k for the week
Week beginning Nov 7
M:Threshold 4*2km @ 3.58, 90secs jog - splits 7.54, 7.56, 7.56, 7.56, then did 4*200m hill reps. Total 17k with warm up and cool down
T: 50mins easy (5.23)
W: 40mins easy (5.10) incl 6*15s hill sprint
T: Intervals 4*1600m, 4mins rec (400m jog + walking around)- splits 5.55, 5.55, 6.00,5.57 (av 3.43 min/km). Good session, hit 194 bpm during las rep !!
F: off
S: 100mins easy-moderate (4.48)
S: off
Total 65k for the week
Have decided that I won't be running SCMS 42k in 3 weeks time. Firstly, my training has not been up to scratch to run a marathon. A myriad of factors such as slow recovery post-Melbourne Marathon, hectic work, and family commitments all contribute to this. There are 8 weeks between Melbourne and SCMS, but during the 5 weeks, my longest run and highest weekly mileage were only 20k and 60ks respectively. There are only 3 weeks left to the race, which effectively killed any hope of an already mission impossible. To make things worse, my weight has gone up by 3kg due to little training after Melbourne marathon.
A second reason of not running is that the incentive just wasn't there. I have zero chance to PB over marathon distance given little training and weather conditions in Singapore. Since I 'only' ran Melbourne in 3.09, perhaps around 3.15 in Singapore is the best I could hope for. As a benchmark, last year's 3rd Master finished around low 3 hours, so 3.10-3.15 might be good enough for a top 10 placing in Masters Category, but with potentially only a couple hundred bucks in reward, the incentive is just not that there. (SCMS Masters category have a prize pool of $15k, with top 5 getting $5k-$1k, while between 6-10 gets a few hundreds).
As some of you have pointed out, maybe it's good for me to get away from the monotony of marathon training for a while. With no key races in the pipeline, perhaps it is a good time to work on speed and neuromuscular stuffs, and skip those long slow runs which can be draining in Singapore conditions. In light of this, I have started doing speedwork once a week with a friend (Ronnie) instead of doing intervals solo. He's a bit faster than me, so hopefully training with him will help me to improve my speed. Also, I hope doing track work on regular basis will help my marathon training later on.
With respect to the overall training, ideally I would like to do more mileage per week, but given life contraints, I am quite content running around 60ks per week for the next couple of months. The goal is simply to stay out of trouble (injury) and improve on my speed and neuromuscular strenght a bit. Haven't decided which marathon to do, but similar to previous years, the two regional options are SIM in March and GCM in July.
