Tuesday, October 02, 2012

1,000th post

Who would have thought it? This drivel has now been going on for 1,000 posts spanning back 3 years or so....

Today was another track session. Again I couldn't make the group session but I was determined to put in a decent session using the track. I bumped into the coach and the session I had missed was run around the pitches. It was 5 x 1 minute off 60 seconds, then 12 minutes, then a further 5 x 1 minutes off 60 - with 2 and a half minutes between sets.

I liked the sound of that so I tweaked it a bit for the track. I settled on 400's instead of the minutes (slightly longer), and 1 x 2 miles (8 laps) instead of the 12 minutes (slightly shorter).

Usual warm-up of 3.5kms. Just as I was about to start the session the floodlights on the track were turned out. This was okay to start with but by the end of the session I was running under the moonlight. Quite nice really - especially as I was the only person on the track. Here's how the session went:

75/73/72/71/72

10:26 (3:16/km pace)

73/72/70/70/69

It was a lovely cool evening and the breeze wasn't too bad. The track however was very wet as we had several huge downpours during the day. That must have cost me at least 5 seconds per lap...

Happy enough with that. I'll probably just run easy for the remainder of the week in preparation for the half on Saturday.

Another 3.5km warm-down to give me 14.2kms all up.

4 comments:

Kevin said...

Beermatt - quick question about the 20 milers for marathon training. I'm aiming for a 3 hr marathon and did a 20 miler hilly training run last weekend in 2:35, is this the correct pace to train at for the longer runs or should you be doing closer to marathon pace?

BeerMatt said...

Hi Kevin, there are different trains of thought here. Some say your long runs should be time on the feet at comfortable pace, others say some of it should be at marathon pace (MP). From personal experience I favour the latter. I can't recall ever doing a full 20 miles at MP, but you may want to make a portion of it at that pace. Say 5 miles easy, 10 at MP, then 5 easy. The most I would normally run at MP would be around 13 miles (half distamce) in the build-up to a marathon. You could do that as a standalone session (I would typically use a half marathon race), or again include as part of your long run. The logic behind all of this is to get your body used to running at MP as it's not a pace you would generally run at. Plus if you do it as part of your long run, you are simulating running on tired legs as this will typically be at the end of the week.

You mentioned your 20 miler was hilly - to run some of that at MP may be too tough as the hills alone are probably more than enough. But you may want to consider a portion of your long runs at MP on a flatter track.

Anyway, good luck with the training and let me know if you have any more questions. Matt

Kevin said...

Cheers Matt. The legs have bounced back immensely after the 20-miler!! It feels like I have a new spring system in my legs all of a sudden. After feeling a bit down after the 20 miles I now know for sure that I'm faster!

Samurai Running said...

Thanks Matt!

I haven't been here for the 1,000 but certain enjoyed what I read and appreciate you keeping at the blog and running. Here's to more!

Cheers!!