Week 6 Base Training - Rat and Fat

This week is the Chinese Lunar New Year week: Thursday and Friday are public holidays in Singapore and combined with the weekend, we had a nice little break. Welcome to the Year of the Rat !! Took advantage of the situations by running more mileage than usual, including 21k on Thursday and 26k on Saturday. Also, (for a change) managed to do four consecutive days of outdoor running.

Had a couple of Stamina workouts, 5x1200m @ LT on treadmill on Tuesday and 3x3000 @ ~HM pace outdoor on Thursday. On Saturday, I joined about 30 other runners from the local running messageboard to do an undulanting, 'sightseeing' 26k run to celebrate the Year of the Rat in the western part of the island. Total time was 3h:30m but the total run portion was only about 2h:20m and the remaining 1-hour plus included drink stops, stairs walking, and waiting for the slow runners to re-group. Nevertheless, it was a good run as we tackled some really decent hills including the steep Vigilante Rd (80m elevation gain) and ~2k long Mt. Faber (100m elevation gain).

During the run, I also realized that my weight was on the 'fat' side when compared to the local Asian runners. At 70kg (of 'wagyu grade 1 quality') I was about 7-10kg heavier than others with the same height. My BMI is 24.5 which placed me at the edge of the overweight category. A 5k reduction to 65kg will put me in the healthy range, but I don't really know whether I can do this. Even when I was doing more mileage in Australia, my lightest weight was 66-67kg and that was usually after a long run when dehydration took place. I think I really need to do something about my weight ASAP. Weight loss leads to reduced oxygen cost of running and in turn, leads to faster and more sustained running. To kick start the process, I have decided to go alcohol-free from today.

My training for this week as follows:

Monday
AM: 40:00 easy @ 4:53 pace (1.5% incline)
PM: 27:00 easy @ 5:27 pace (3.0% incline)

Tuesday
LT Intervals: 5 x 1200m @ 4:03 pace with 300m jog (1.0% incline)
Total Workout: 46:00 (av 4:36 pace)

Wednesday
AM: Yoga
PM: 40:00 jogging @ 5:39 pace (2.0% incline)

Thursday
Stamina Intervals: 3 x 3k @ 4:15 pace/approx. HM pace (road)
Total Workout: 21k in 1:39 (av 4:44 pace)

Friday
40:00 jogging @ 5:47, 73% MaxHR (grass)

Saturday
'Sightseeing Run' with SGRunners (undulanting route)
Total Run portion: 26k in 2:20 excluding ~1 hour stops (rest, waiting for slower runners etc)

Sunday
43:00 jogging @ 5:45, 71% MaxHR (pavement) + stretching/pushups/situps

Total 92k for the week @ av 5:11 min/km
Year to date 392k @ av 5:10 min/km (av 65.3k per week)