Training Week 24 Recap

Hi all,

This is going to be a short recap for the week. Tomorrow (the usual day of writing these recaps) I fly to Palma on business so I'm going to write this now.

Tuesday

Type: Continuous Hills

Time and Distance: 49 mins 33 secs, 11.8 km.

Detail: 1.1 km warm up. 3 sets of 4 hill reps (400m up, 400m down) with 2 mins recovery. First set was 12:35, second set was 13:00, third set was 12:58. 1.1 km cool down.

Thursday

Type: Intervals

Time and Distance: 45 mins, 8.55 km.

Detail: 15 mins warm up at 10.5 km/h pace. 4 x 800m at 15.7, 16.0, 16.3, 16.5 km/h pace with 3 mins recovery at 8.0 km/h pace. 6 mins cool down at 10.5 km/h pace.

Total Weekly Distance: 20.35 km.

Comments: A poor week in terms of quantity, but hopefully not in terms of quality. Continuous hill session and intervals have been upped or modified a notch but I had to cut the long run out as I'm going to be flat out this weekend, plus the Copenhagen marathon is next weekend, so I'm intending to enter this event as fresh as possible. Like Rotterdam, I'm going to take the event easy, and hopefully recover as quickly as possible.

Improvements: I'm going to take it easy in the coming week to be fresh for Copenhagen. I'll still do a continuous hill session and an easier run. There is my normal running route I did in Palma that incorporated an uphill climb, which is going to be great for my continuous hill session. Plus I know what sort of time I can get on this run, so if I better it this time round I know I've gotten fitter since the last time I ran it.

I've checked the running calendar and there is only 19 more weeks to the Berlin marathon, which is the event I'm targeting for sub-3 hours. Time really does move fast! There's also 3 more weeks till the start of my 16 week training programme designed by the FP Run Club, so I'm really eager to start training according to a plan designed by the experts. I'm also eager to see how difficult it can get, just to see if I'll handle the rigours of their training plan!

I had a sports massage last night, and I have to say it was okay, if a little disappointing. It didn't hurt as much as I had expected, which is good as I have no injuries or niggles to worry about. Plus it seems my legs are in great shape. However I wonder if the masseuse could have gone a little harder - obviously she doesn't want to give me huge amounts of pain brought on by her elbows and knuckles.

My separate entry on running form and technique will have to come in a later post, sorry. I've been too busy this week on other things, so I will visit this section in future. Don't miss it.

Cheers!

Aaron

Training Week 23 Recap

Evening folks,

Here is my training recap for week 23. This was a great week! Let me tell you why.

Tuesday

Type: Continuous Hills

Time and Distance: 81 mins 26 secs, 17.8 km.

Detail: 5.5 km warm up. 2 sets of 7 hill reps (400m up, 400m down) with 3 mins recovery. First set was 22:53, second set was 23:18. 1.1 km cool down.

Thursday

Type: Intervals

Time and Distance: 45 mins, 8.47 km.

Detail: 15 mins warm up at 10.5 km/h pace. 4 x 800m at 15.5, 15.7, 16.0, 16.3 km/h pace with 3 mins recovery at 8.0 km/h pace. 5 mins cool down at 10.5 km/h pace.

Saturday

Type: Long

Time and Distance: 120 mins 50 secs, 24.6 km.

Detail: Kept it easy and conversational. Focused really hard on breathing and proper form.

Sunday

Type: Recovery

Time and Distance: 30 mins, 5.23 km.

Detail: 30 mins on treadmill at 10.5 km/h pace at 1.0 incline.

Total Weekly Distance: 56.1 km.

Comments: This, I believe, has to be the best week quality wise. I was really happy with my long run yesterday. At that pace it seems to be a little on the fast side for me, almost close to my last year's marathon pace. Yet I still kept it easy and conversational, and it really did feel like that. The trick was just a slight tweak in my technique and breathing. Okay, I basically focused all my attention to these two areas, and I believe that made my long run much easier. Compare with last week's long run where I struggled through the same distance in more time, this week was pretty much a breeze. I have to owe it to my change in technique, which has really been hammered home to me recently.

Improvements: After this week's encouraging results, I'm going to pay a lot more attention to my technique on every run I go on. Continuous hills, threshold runs, intervals and long runs - you name it. Will still maintain the quality of these runs for next week.

This basically feels like a rebirth to running, having gone back to the beginning, examining the basics, looking at areas for improvement, and applying them in training. And honestly, it feels like it has paid off. I don't have much time to blog about this now, but I will definitely visit this area on technique in a separate post. This isn't something to ignore because a few tweaks in your running technique will definitely yield positive results. It worked for me this week!

Cheers!

Aaron

Training Week 22 Recap

Afternoon all,

I have to apologise for the lack of material here on this blog! The past few weeks have been mainly training recaps and hardly anything else, and I feel that I've let my reading audience down here. I hate reeling off excuses; all I can say is that I've been really busy of late not just with training but with life as well. Hopefully you'll still find them useful.

Here is the recap for week 22. Another solid week, but I will need to up the ante very very soon!

Tuesday

Type: Continuous Hills

Time and Distance: 81 mins, 15.9 km.

Detail: 5.2 km warm up. 2 sets of 6 hill reps (400m up, 400m down) with 3 mins recovery. First set was 19:53, second set was 20:38. 1.1 km cool down.

Thursday

Type: Intervals

Time and Distance: 45 mins, 8.47 km.

Detail: 15 mins warm up at 10.5 km/h pace. 4 x 800m at 15.0, 15.5, 15.7, 16.0 km/h pace with 3 mins recovery at 8.0 km/h pace. 5 mins cool down at 10.5 km/h pace.

Saturday

Type: Long

Time and Distance: 135 mins 15 secs, 25.6 km.

Detail: Kept it easy and conversational. First half 69 mins, second half 66 mins 15 secs.

Total Weekly Distance: 49.97 km.

Comments: I've had a pretty hard week this week. Even though they're not meant to be easy, I'm finding the continuous hills a little more manageable now, but the intervals and long run have been rather difficult because I haven't done these for a wee while now. These have been a big shock to the system, so hopefully I can adapt and improve on this.

Improvements: Having looked at my training diary for the past few weeks, I noted that most of my weekend long runs have been less than 20 km! I think that must be why my recent long run was a little on the difficult side. Despite trying to keep it easy and conversational, the legs were starting to ache a bit. From now on, all my long runs have to be at least 25 km long (obviously I can take it easy on my easier weeks!). Apart from that, just focus on the quality of my threshold runs and continuous hills. After this week's interval session, I'm tempted to resume doing treadmill interval work. However this week was a one-off as the local athletics track was unavailable to the public so I wasn't able to do any threshold running this week. If I can help it, I'll keep the intervals on the shelf for now.

This week, I read an enlightening blog post written by George Anderson on The Secrets of Faster Running. Most of these secrets were known to me, but it's amazing how much of it I actually apply in my training. In fact, when I trained for the Berlin Marathon last year and set my personal best, I neglected all of those secrets. If I knew how to apply them better at the time, imagine how much better I would have done. Let me go into more detail.

Secret # 1: Elite athletes TRAIN SLOW

Sure, I know how to run slow, but when doing my long runs and especially closer to the marathon, I was running them just slower than race pace, instead of 1-2 minutes per mile slower than was prescribed. In fact, two weeks before Berlin, my long run of 37 km was around the same pace as my actual race pace! Imagine if I didn't go that fast in training I would have arrived at the start line probably with more energy, and finished probably with a better race time.

Secret # 2: Elite athletes run fast

Throughout my "marathon career", I've learnt to increase the pace of my runs. However, I also become obsessed with pace so much that I tended to run at a particular "fast pace", then bettering it a little in the next training session. I didn't really know that by pushing the pace so often I wasn't allowing myself to get used to the pace I was running at. To compound this further, most of my fast running was done on the treadmill, which, surprise surprise, doesn't translate to fast running on the road!

Secret # 3: Elite runners don't just run

Yeah I also knew about this, but I didn't exactly know what they did outside of running. But now I know. Drills, stretches, body conditioning, mobility, stability and strength exercises. How much of this stuff did I actually do when training for Berlin last year? Absolutely none, apart from the odd bit of stretching after a run. How much of this stuff do I do now? Well, not a lot I'm afraid. I'm hoping to address this now! As an aside, before I took up marathon running, I was into strength training heavily, and no doubt this has helped in the transition to becoming a marathon runner. However, for me, doing strength training and marathon running at the same time is almost near impossible to do, so unfortunately I've had to ditch all the heavy weights. The result: I'm thinner, lighter, a better runner no doubt, but also not as strong as before. I'm not saying you have to include a full-blown strength training routine on top of your marathon training, but doing a few simple strength exercises can go a long way.

Secret # 4: Elite runners train on hills

I know about hill work. Do I actually do it? I looked at my training schedule for Berlin last year, and was quite surprised to see that I only did ONE hill session in my 24 weeks of preparing for Berlin. That session was a hard sprint up until my muscles were about to shut down, and then a walk/jog down while trying to repay my oxygen debt. Just doing it on its own isn't going to pay big dividends to my training. Actually this wasn't the only hill I ran; I did do a variety of hilly routes in my training runs but to be frank I only did one specific hill session. So far this year, I've done four quality hill sessions - four times more than last year! And still many more to come!

Secret # 5: It's not just what you run, but how you run that really matters

I've watched a lot of marathon coverage on TV and YouTube, and even seen the very best runners run in the London Marathon. And they run so effortlessly. Technique and form have been driven home to me only recently after watching George Anderson's video on YouTube, so much so that every training run I've been doing I've been paying very close attention to my running form. It hasn't been very pretty so far, especially with regards to my breathing. At times I'm trying very hard to monitor my breathing, but then I sometimes trail off into my own little world before realising that I don't remember taking any breaths for the past five minutes or so! It's because breathing is such a sub-conscious activity. Oh well, I'll get there someday!

Train hard, but also smart!

Aaron

Training Week 21 Recap

Hi all,

Here is the recap for week 21. I'm still feeling the effects of this week's training with a few sore spots in the legs. I think it's time I booked a sports massage. Trust me, they are good!

Tuesday

Type: Threshold

Time and Distance: 61 mins, 12.6 km.

Detail: 2.1 km warm up. 3 x 2800m (11:45, 11:55, 11:52) with 3 mins recovery. 2.1 km cool down with some strides near the end. Averaging around 4:10 - 4:15 min/km, but definitely getting slower as the repeats went on.

Thursday

Type: Continuous Hills

Time and Distance: 52 mins, 11.8 km.

Detail: 1.1 km warm up. 2 sets of 6 hill reps (400m) with 3 mins recovery. Each set was approximately 20 mins. 1.1 km cool down.

Saturday

Type: Easy

Time and Distance: 98 mins 9 secs, 17.6 km.

Detail: Kept it easy and conversational. Tended to go fast in places, but overall effort was easy.

Total Weekly Distance: 42 km.

Comments: 42 km this week may look like a low volume week, but it's actually been a very tough week in terms of quality. I was quite surprised at how the continuous hill session went. I'm not too sure whether the ascent was 400m (Google Maps told me this!), but 6 reps of 800m would equate to 4800m in approximately 20 minutes. I've never run a 5 km race in under 20 minutes, so to know that I can achieve this would be a great psychological boost.

Improvements: More of the same for next week. Just focus on the quality of my threshold runs and continuous hills, and I think I can't do much wrong at this stage. Continuous hills has added a new dimension to my training, so to do these is only going to make me a stronger runner.

After watching George Anderson's video on Running Technique, I've started to concentrate a lot more on my running form - in particular how to be more efficient when running. When going out for a training run, it's so easy to forget about your running technique, especially when you haven't had any exposure on what constitutes good running technique. If you watch the elites, they make running look so easy. With the right technique and the resulting economy of movement, a runner can run faster, longer and expend less energy when doing so. Check out his video, and make it a point to really concentrate on every footstep in every run.

I have my second marathon for the year lined up in Copenhagen next month. Like Rotterdam, I'm going to take it easy, and perhaps incorporate a fast finish to the race. The time isn't important, but maybe I can go better than the 3:59:22 I ran at Rotterdam with comparatively little effort.

Finally the London Marathon was on today, and the men's elite field boasted a very powerful lineup this year, including the defending champion and course record holder, current world champion, and the second fastest marathoner of all time. However, in the marathon, lofty reputations do not count and none of them managed to win this year, let alone finish the race. It was also the case for the women's race as well, with little-known, relatively inexperienced runners trumping their more experienced opponents. It's amazing to see how, on the day, a great runner with a wealth of titles and records could perform way below standard. From what I've seen I think there are two things that will carry runners through to victory. A lot of preparation, and a little race-day magic (or maybe a lot)!

Cheers!

Aaron

Training Week 20 Recap

Hey guys,

This week's training recap is a little short, having only returned back from Holland mid week, so I've only gotten 2 training runs in. Here is the lowdown.

Saturday

Type: Easy

Time and Distance: 79 mins, 12.5 km.

Detail: Very easy and conversational. Probably the slowest I've run all year.

Sunday

Type: Steady

Time and Distance: 90 mins, 17.8 km.

Detail: Not my best run, started too fast, had a weak middle, and then a fast finish.

Total Weekly Distance: 30.3 km.

Comments: Just a low volume week to get the rust off.

Improvements: Next week I'm planning a few tough sessions, so hopefully I'll get those benefits I'm hoping for. Hello, threshold runs and continuous hills.

To close, I've managed to get my personal pictures from the Rotterdam Marathon, which I'll include here. Some of them aren't of me, but they're so good I had to put them in.

These two pictures are my favourites. Presumably father and son, two kids give a beer to a runner just a couple of hundred metres from the finish. Just metres back, I'm behind the runner in the green t-shirt.

Good kid. I'll drink this beer quickly and then cross the finish!

A few metres back, I'm making my move towards the finish.

Thinking of a beer right now!

Nope, a beer is a diuretic. Just ask that old man on the right.

Overtaking the guy in green and the guy with the beer, and on towards the finish! No beer for me, but I'm cool with that!

Nite!

Aaron

Rotterdam Marathon 2010 - Race Report

Hi all,

Here's my race report on the Rotterdam Marathon, as it happened. In summary I kept it pretty easy, and wanted to see if I could go under 4 hours. I'm happy to say I managed to do this, and even managed to speed up as the race went on. Being the 30th Rotterdam Marathon, it was a jubilee event, so the organisers went all out this year to make it a success.

On the day before the marathon, I picked up my race number from the marathon expo. Unfortunately I didn't win the free trip to "some place warm", but the pasta party that night allowed me unlimited pasta at the top of the Euromast, the tallest building in Rotterdam. Looking at the great views of the city, I managed to help myself to three generous helpings of pasta and was thoroughly loaded!

The next day was race day. It was unusual in that it started at 11am. This meant a normal wake up time, but by then the sun would be high in the sky. Thankfully, the clouds were out and it ended up being a very very cool day for the most part. I felt that a world record might be broken in these conditions.

After a good breakfast, I made my way to the starting areas. At the last minute, I decided to take my camera and my phone with me. I wanted to take some pictures of the race in progress, which I'll include in this post.

11am ticked over, and the race formally started with a cannon blast, which I managed to hear amid the cacophony of noise on the Coolsingel. Soon, I started to run my own race. A lot of people were passing me from behind but I tried to ignore them, put my head down, and ran at the pace I wanted to sustain for the entire time. After 1 km, the watch was 6:15, after 2 km it was 12:15. Perfect - I'll try and maintain 6 mins/km throughout and see what happens.

Along the way I took quite a few pictures. It was pretty much an easy effort up to the half way mark. I got there in around 2:03. If I kept going at that pace, I would be clocking around 4:06. I wondered if I could break 4 hours by going just a little faster. Around 25 km, my legs were starting to fatigue a bit, but I still managed to hold on without slowing down. By 31 km, the time was approximately 3:00. At that point, I tweeted on the run whether I could do 11 more km in 60 minutes.

The sun was high in the sky by now, and I was getting tired by then. I wasn't feeling it in my lungs, but I was feeling it in my legs. Yet I still didn't slow down. Every km marker I passed, I kept looking at my watch, doing the maths in my head. I was still on target! But only just. As soon as I entered the Coolsingel, with around 300 metres to go, I decided to do a sprint finish and managed to cross the line in 3:59:22. A new season best for this year!

The baggage tents, where runners keep their bags, were also the changing areas for runners. The Dutch aren't afraid to strip naked and change their clothes, which is an eye-opener! Only in Holland! After I picked up my bag, knowing there weren't any massage services around, I headed to the hotel and crashed for the day. Probably not the smartest thing to do considering that my muscles were very tight after 4 hours of continuous running. The after-effects were still apparent after 3-4 days, but now my legs are fine!

To summarise, here are some of my personal highlights, and lowlights, of this year's Rotterdam Marathon.

Highlights

• Unlimited pasta at the top of the Euromast.
• Finishing on the Coolsingel among thousands of supporters.
• Awesome crowd support along the way.
• Many live music performances and bands along the way.
• Free t-shirt with your race pack. That's always a nice thing to have.
• Grabbing food from the locals. I was trying to grab pretzel sticks from a lady, dropped all of them once I grabbed them, and then another guy ran after me, kept pace with me and held out a bag of potato chips while I managed to grab a handful!

Lowlights

• No massage facilities!!!
• Relatively early cut-off target time of 5:30. For those not able to meet this finishing time, you're out of luck finishing the marathon officially.
• Drinks stations quite sparse. Having drink stations every 5 km is a bit hard for us runners.

And now some photos.

A giant banner on display at the marathon expo containing supportive messages for this year's marathon runners.

Some nice person even left me a message. This person's always one step ahead of me ;-)

The Euromast, where I helped myself to unlimited pasta!

Jammed in the starting pen between the 3:30 - 4:00 marathoners.

Crossing the Erasmus Bridge, around 1 km into the marathon.

Somewhere around the 15 km mark. This was mostly residential/park area.

Crossing the Erasmus Bridge again heading back towards the city centre, around the 26 km mark.

Entering the Coolsingel, with only a few hundred metres to go. You can really feel the crowd support here.

Only a few hundred metres to go from here.

Getting closer!

And finally, it is finished! Sore legs, but not too exhausted from it all.

1 down, 4 to go. Copenhagen is next! After my run in Rotterdam, I'm confident that I can put in another solid, but unspectacular, time in Copenhagen next month. After all, it's just another training run, and an excuse to visit a city. Let's hope my trip doesn't get disrupted because of Iceland's volcanic ash!

Best,

Aaron

Training Week 19 Recap

Hey all,

I'm back from Holland with only 12 or so hours to spare before those volcanic ashes really ground air travel to a complete halt in and out of the UK. Really enjoyed my time in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. More on the Rotterdam Marathon later. Firstly, the training recap from last week.

Monday

Type: Easy

Time and Distance: 46 mins, 8.2 km.

Tuesday

Type: Threshold

Time and Distance: 54 mins, 11.4 km.

Detail: Warm up for 2 km. 3 x 2400m in 10 minutes with 5 mins recovery in between.

Thursday

Type: Continuous Hills

Time and Distance: 40 mins, 8 km.

Detail: 2 sets of 6 hill reps at threshold pace. Recovery of 3 minutes between sets.

Sunday

Type: Marathon

Time and Distance: 239 mins 22 seconds, 42.195 km.

Detail: Kept the pace and intensity easy the whole way. Legs started getting tired around the 25-30 km mark. Still managed to go faster as the race went on.

Splits: 5 km: 30:00. 10 km: 59:37. 15 km: 1:28:35. 20 km: 1:57:19. Half marathon: 2:03:44. 25 km: 2:25:54. 30 km: 2:54:14. 35 km: 3:21:23. 40 km: 3:48:17.

Time between splits: 5 km: 30:00. 10 km: 29:37. 15 km: 28:58. 20 km: 28:44. 25 km: 28:35. 30 km: 28:20. 35 km: 27:09. 40 km: 26:54.

Average pace between splits: 5 km: 6:00 min/km (10.0 km/h). 10 km: 5:58 min/km (10.05 km/h). 15 km: 5:47 min/km (10.35 km/h). 20 km: 5:44 min/km (10.44 km/h). 25 km: 5:43 min/km (10.5 km/h). 30 km: 5:40 min/km (10.58 km/h). 35 km: 5:26 min/km (11.05 km/h). 40 km: 5:23 min/km (11.15 km/h). Finish: 5:02 min/km (11.88 km/h).

Total Weekly Distance: 69.795 km.

Comments: This looks to be a very hard week, with the threshold running, continuous hills and a marathon all in one week. However it actually wasn't too bad. I managed to survive the two hard sessions during the week, then had a full two days rest to get ready for Rotterdam. It's very easy to go into a marathon thinking that it's a race and that you should do well, but I had to keep reminding myself that it's only a training run (only I've never done a long run in training that happened to be as long as a marathon itself). So I forced myself to reign in the pace, and I think I've coped with this week pretty well. No injuries yet! Of course my legs were aching after the race and for a few days after (well 4 hours of continuous foot pounding is going to do that to you), but now my legs are pretty much recovered and I should be able to start running again (slowly of course). I was keen to know my split times, and was surprised that I got faster as the race went on. This indicates that I was just cruising in this marathon, and also had extra energy left in the tank. The weather conditions were ideal so that also helped.

Improvements: After 4 days off running this week (week 20), I'm going to take it slowly this week, and concentrate on the easy stuff. Next week (week 21), I'll get back into the serious running.

Well, that was that, and soon I'll post a race report of Rotterdam as well. I thoroughly enjoyed Rotterdam (and the subsequent trip to Amsterdam). Rotterdam is a must-do event, so for anyone wanting to run a marathon in Europe, Rotterdam is a top choice! Starting with the blast of cannons, running across the Erasmus bridge, live bands playing a variety of music at every corner, and finishing on the Coolsingel (the main street in Rotterdam), it has all the hallmarks of a memorable event.

Finally, out of the top 5 fastest marathon runners of all time, 4 of them got their fastest times at Rotterdam. I would have loved to have gone all out last Sunday, but that would have gotten in the way of the overall goal. So, if you're looking to smash that PB, then run in Rotterdam.

Tot ziens!

Aaron