from Diary of a “Rubbish Marathon Runner” I don’t quite remember how this started, but ever since last year tempo runs and me don’t mix. We just don’t see eye-to-eye, metaphorically speaking. I’ve ranted and raved enough about this by now, and I guess I’ll spare you this time round. Let’s just state that my tempo runs aren’t tempo runs any more, and I’m not entirely sure how to fix this. Sure, I’ve got the usual excuses. It was early on Wednesday, about 6:30 local time, and early morning hours aren’t conductive to fast running. Plus, the weather didn’t exactly help. In the middle of the warm-up, I started hearing precipitation fall against the trees and for several seconds couldn’t quite figure out why I wasn’t wet from the rain yet, until I finally realised that it was snowing, not raining. According to the weather pages the wind was at gale force levels, and I could never quite figure out where it came from – it usually seemed to come head on, of course. Oh, and it started hail stoning when I was about half a mile away from home, which is why I ended up with 9.9 miles. I did not feel like adding an extra 0.1 miles in those conditions just to get to a round number.
Anyway, I recently did start to worry about an important component missing from my training, namely sustained hard(ish) efforts. I did 2 or 3 runs at marathon effort and some short tempo runs before the hill sprints, but that was it, and it’s not a lot. The training schedule finally included a 10k time trial this week, but I was left wondering at what effort level that should be run. It was never going to be 10k race pace, I simply can’t do that without a number pinned to my chest. I always thought that tempo runs should be run at half-marathon pace, which would be 6:30 according to my PR, but I have run a 10-miler at 6:18 pace 2 months ago, which probably means that my HM PR is a bit soft. Never mind, I can’t seem to hit 6:30 in a training run, so I decided to run mainly by feel, and ideally the HR should be somewhere in the 160s.
What I ended up was 6:40 during the first half, and a big slowdown due to wind, snow, hills, fatigue and probably laziness on the second half, and I ended up with 6:58 average pace for the 10k segment, which is even slower than the planned marathon pace. Slightly worried I checked last year’s log, and was re-assured to find similar paces during the Dublin build-up. At the very least I don’t seem to have slowed down. I might break next week’s tempo run into 2 shorter segments (that’s what I did last year, even though I hated the break in the middle), and I’m thinking about swapping the tempo and speed sessions, i.e. do the speed sessions on Wednesday and the tempos on Sunday, because on Sunday I tend to run 2 hours later in the day, and the legs just feel so different. I do wonder if I should try and run a tempo run after work once a week, rather than do my entire running in the early morning. How I would do that without impacting on my family life I don’t know, though. And let’s be clear, family will always come first.
Niamh refused to let my cycle to work because of the weather, and absolutely insisted on driving me. I didn’t think it was quite that bad, but gave in.
Today’s easy run was unremarkable. The weather forecast was bad, and I woke a few times in the night from the wind and rain but got lucky during the run. It remained dry until mile 6, and it only started raining more heavily on the last mile, which I can endure. This time I had to cycle to work, though.
4 Mar
9.9 miles, 1:12:59, 7:22 pace, HR 154
incl. 10k @ 6:58 pace, HR 162
5 Mar
8 miles, 1:07:07, 8:23 pace, HR 138
Posted by Thomas at 1:57 PM 6 comments
Labels: time trial
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Back Home
I guess I’m a creature of habit, which is why I don’t even think about getting up early each day any more; I just do it. Being back home in Caragh Lake provided me with my usual roads, which I found comforting. It struck me on Monday that for the last 5 days I had run in different areas of the country each day: Thursday Cork, Friday Kerry, Saturday Cork, Sunday Dublin, Monday Kerry. I don’t particularly want to repeat the insane amount of travel that happened between each of these runs ever again.
With the Ballycotton 10 miler being on Sunday, I did hesitate on the mileage for Monday’s long run. The original plan had said 20 and the revised one 18, but the last thing I did on Sunday evening was to set the alarm for 4:50, time for 20 miles. Things got a bit more complicated when Maia woke as I got ready and I had to spend some time preparing a bottle and settling her back in her cot; I thought I probably wouldn’t have time for 20 miles and would end up doing 18 or 19 after all.
Since I had turned Saturday’s planned easy run into a tempo workout I couldn’t help but wonder how my legs would hold up.
I set off into the very dark night. In marked contrast to all the runs in Cork it was dead still; I did not encounter another human being for the next 2 hours. The weather wasn’t great with plenty of wind and the occasional rain shower, which is never a good combination. But the legs held up much better than they did the previous Monday, and when I reached our driveway after 15 miles I decided to go for the entire 20 miles and to put some extra effort into the final 5. I started that last section at around 7:30 pace but surprisingly managed to gradually increase it until I ended up with an average pace of 7:22 for the last 5 miles, 7:47 pace for the entire run. That’s a decent improvement to last week, but definitely not yet where I want to be.
Cycling to and from work was a chore, with the tired legs and the increasingly strong wind. At times like that I really want to buy a new car, but the journey is over after 20 minutes and then I’m happy enough with my bike again.
I took it really easy today, my first easy run in a few days, and something I really needed. For once I didn’t have to keep an eye on the Garmin to ensure that I wouldn’t speed up unnecessarily, the legs dictated the pace and the rest followed. I should have worn long sleeves though; the temperature of 3C/37 F would have warranted that, especially as the wind was definitely picking up again. One day I’ll learn.
I still haven’t quite decided yet how much I am prepared to compromise the marathon training for Sunday’s race. I’ll definitely do a time trial tomorrow; the question remains how long I should run on Friday. On a normal week this would be 18 miles. I’ll definitely cut this to 15 at most, but I’m thinking about doing no more than 10 or 12. Decisions, decisions.
2 Mar
20 miles, 2:35:34, 7:47 pace, HR 152
last 5 @ 7:22 pace
3 Mar
8 miles, 1:06:56, 8:22 pace, HR 140