Week 13 General Training: Half-cooked

After two full days to recuperate, I finally was able to get rid of the flu bug and the sluggishness. Due to two weeks of 'lost training', my strategy was simply to get back in shape ASAP. While I understand this week's training sessions probably will only have minimal impact for this Sunday's race, but I just wanna make sure that my body will be familiar with the demands of running a Half Marathon (e.g. running ~90 mins in duration at a good pace).

On Monday I did a 19k run including a few ks of race pace on the treadmill - which was not a biggie despite using a 1% grade. On Tuesday I ran a threshold type work on a short 400m marked bike path. I am hoping that the training balance will be okay, not too little to have negligible effect, and not too much to cause any negative effect for Sunday's race in KL.

In essence, I felt that my endurance sucks big time due to lack of long runs. I will still keep a sub-90 goal in sight, but realistically I will be happy with anything under 1:35 given my poor fitness level. Also, I've been hearing information that the KL Half Marathon route was not a traditional 21.1k but closer to 22k. Hence, the above timing goal might be out of whack.

On a good note, despite a couple of low weeks due to flu & tiredness, my March mileage will likely to reach around 300k - the most since August 2007 when I did 350k that month.

Sunday 23/03 (treadmill):
8k easy in 42 mins (av pace 5:21)

Monday 24/03 (treadmill):
6.5k warm up in 34 mins (av 5:15, 148 bpm)
3 x 2000m @ 4:17 (170-173 bpm) with 500m recovery
4 x 2 mins @ 4:00 with equal time recovery
1.5k cool down
Total workout: 19k in 91 mins (av pace 4:50)

Tuesday 25/03 (treadmill):
AM: 2k jog + 20:00 weight training (upper & lower body)
PM: 6k easy in 31 mins (av pace 5:15)

Wednesday 26/03 (road):
2k warm up incl. 2 short strides
10 x 400m @ 10k-16k pace on 400m marked path, ~30secs recovery to turn around
Splits: 1:33, 1:36, 1:35, 1:36, 1:34, 1:34, 1:35, 1:34, 1:33, 1:35 (av apce 3:57, HR 173, high HR 183 bpm)
4 x 200m in 00:41, 43, 42, 42 with 1 min rest
1k cool down
Total workout: 9.4k in 44 mins (av pace 4:42)

Thursday 27/03 (treadmill)
10 mins weight training (upper body)
6.6k easy in 35 mins (av pace 5:21)

Friday 28/03 (road)
9k easy in 45 mins incl 5 x 8 secs hill sprints (av pace 5:04, 153 bpm)
Travel to KL

Saturday 29/03:
Probably 3-4k jog in the hotel's treadmill

Total for the week 64k, month-to-date 275k, Year-to-date 838k