Afternoon runners,
This week marks the half-way mark in the FP Run Club's 16-week sub-3 hour training programme. So the remaining 8 weeks are key! After conceding that last week didn't go as well as I would've liked (and I only have to blame myself for choosing to visit Stockholm), I resolved to put in a huge week of high quality, high volume running. Let's see how I went.
Monday
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 33 mins, 5.3 km.
Tuesday
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 30 mins 48 secs, 4.9 km.
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 44 mins 52 secs, 6.9 km.
Wednesday
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 27 mins 43 secs, 4.3 km.
Thursday
Type: Mixed pace
Time and Distance: 54 mins 52 secs, 11.85 km.
Detail: Warm up for 11 mins (1.6 km). 4 mins at threshold with 75 secs recovery (approx 950m). 4 mins at 10k pace with 75 secs recovery (approx 1km). Repeat the set 4 more times. Cool down for approx 4 mins (500m).
Saturday
Type: Continuous hills
Time and Distance: 85 mins, 17.1 km.
Detail: Warm up for 20 mins (3.2 km). 4 sets of 10 mins at threshold with 90 secs recovery. Cool down for approx 25 mins (4.3 km). Each rep was 200m, each set was 2400m.
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 32 mins 21 secs, 5.3 km.
Sunday
Type: Long run
Time and Distance: 149 mins 58 secs, 29 km.
Detail: Started easy, and got faster as the run went on. Sustained 5 min/km pace for the majority of the run.
Total Weekly Distance: 84.65 km
Comments: What a turnaround! A much better week overall. Just short of 90 km in total mileage, but I managed to bank every run this week. I actually struggled in my long run for some reason, and I guess it was due to the fact that I missed my long run last week, and that my last long run was 3 weeks ago! Whilst I managed to scrape 29 km, I was feeling quite flat at the end of the run and I probably would've slowed down if it was a marathon setting. Not very encouraging to think, but it's only one long run and I won't get drawn into any conclusions at this stage.
Improvements: Week 9 is going to be an easier week for me, thank goodness! The volume will be less, i.e. the long run will only be 90 minutes, but the effort and intensity will be much higher in this run and other faster running sessions. Bring it on!
Well, I've reached the half-way stage and now there's only 8 more weeks to go. In reality, there's only 5 more weeks of quality training as the last 3 weeks will be tapering for the big race in Berlin, to ensure that I arrive at the start line healthy and strong. These coming weeks have to really count, so I'm afraid I'll have to limit certain "pleasures" from now on and just stay true to the task. No more late nights, weekend travel excursions, bad food, alcohol..... :-(
Gathering momentum,
Aaron
