I've been working on my marathon training plan for a few months now. Learning it, understanding it, being downright intimidated by it. The end of week 24 finds me three-fifths of the way through week three of the plan. And this week it all clicked - *clenches cigar between teeth* - I love it when a marathon training plan comes together! So, yes it was a good week, and I know there will be tough weeks ahead that will be pretty ordinary and some that will be downright miserable. But let me enjoy this one for the time being.
Week 24 began with a 500m swim in the pool on Friday evening. The first time I've done something like this in 20 years (aside from my disasterous open water experience in the Illawarra Biathlon in 2007 - best forgotten). I covered this swim in more detail in Episode 5 of the B-HAG Running podcast.
Saturday afternoon I had my Training Plan Week 2 long run - this week called for 24km at a pace of 5:51min/km. I averaged about 6:00min/km but attribute the difference to a lack of concentration due to recording a 20 minute run cast for the podcast.
Sunday was a rest day. Monday I did my track workout and was accomanied by my 11 year-old daughter, S-Dub, who joined my for the warm-up and cool down runs and every other lap of the track workout. We had a lot of fun together.
This week's session called for:
Warm up 15 Mins: 2.54km @ 5:56 min/km
1200m / Target pace: 5:20 / Actual: 5:00
1000m / Target pace: 4:24 / Actual: 4:02
800m / Target pace: 3:29 / Actual: 3:17
600m / Target pace: 2:36 / Actual: 2:21
400m / Target pace: 1:43 / Actual 1:28
200m / Target pace: 0:50 / Actual: 0:41
Warm down 11 Mins: 1:87km @ 5:50 min/km
Each set had a 200m Rest Interval.
Very happy with this workout!
Tuesday saw me back in the pool again and a 600m swim. Felt a lot more stronger and confident this time around - and faster. I'm hoping to build up to being able to swim 1500-1600m for a swim workout, so it's still early days. I'm actually liking the swimming... I can't believe it!
Wednesday was my tempo run. This week's tempo called for 11kms. 1.5km easy (5:49min/km) followed by 8km Long Tempo (5:09min/km) followed by 1.5km easy again. I felt full of energy and just ran as fast as I comfortably could without resorting to checking my pace on the garmin in the dark every 50 metres. This 'blind' approach appeared to work!
Splits: 5:40, 5:18, 5:10, 4:54, 4:46, 5:05, 4:54, 5:05, 4:56, 5:16, 5:37.
Thursday... the plan was to do a rowing session at the gym, but being called back to work late at my job put an end to that one. However, I still have three days to get in an extra cross-training session and week three's long run: 27km (which will be a new distance PR for me).
One of my job's will have me interstate for the next eight days. This could prove challenging, trying to get in all the workouts that I want to. I may not be able to produce the podcast for that week either. We'll see.
Week 24 began with a 500m swim in the pool on Friday evening. The first time I've done something like this in 20 years (aside from my disasterous open water experience in the Illawarra Biathlon in 2007 - best forgotten). I covered this swim in more detail in Episode 5 of the B-HAG Running podcast.
Saturday afternoon I had my Training Plan Week 2 long run - this week called for 24km at a pace of 5:51min/km. I averaged about 6:00min/km but attribute the difference to a lack of concentration due to recording a 20 minute run cast for the podcast.
Sunday was a rest day. Monday I did my track workout and was accomanied by my 11 year-old daughter, S-Dub, who joined my for the warm-up and cool down runs and every other lap of the track workout. We had a lot of fun together.
This week's session called for:
Warm up 15 Mins: 2.54km @ 5:56 min/km
1200m / Target pace: 5:20 / Actual: 5:00
1000m / Target pace: 4:24 / Actual: 4:02
800m / Target pace: 3:29 / Actual: 3:17
600m / Target pace: 2:36 / Actual: 2:21
400m / Target pace: 1:43 / Actual 1:28
200m / Target pace: 0:50 / Actual: 0:41
Warm down 11 Mins: 1:87km @ 5:50 min/km
Each set had a 200m Rest Interval.
Very happy with this workout!
Tuesday saw me back in the pool again and a 600m swim. Felt a lot more stronger and confident this time around - and faster. I'm hoping to build up to being able to swim 1500-1600m for a swim workout, so it's still early days. I'm actually liking the swimming... I can't believe it!
Wednesday was my tempo run. This week's tempo called for 11kms. 1.5km easy (5:49min/km) followed by 8km Long Tempo (5:09min/km) followed by 1.5km easy again. I felt full of energy and just ran as fast as I comfortably could without resorting to checking my pace on the garmin in the dark every 50 metres. This 'blind' approach appeared to work!
Splits: 5:40, 5:18, 5:10, 4:54, 4:46, 5:05, 4:54, 5:05, 4:56, 5:16, 5:37.
Thursday... the plan was to do a rowing session at the gym, but being called back to work late at my job put an end to that one. However, I still have three days to get in an extra cross-training session and week three's long run: 27km (which will be a new distance PR for me).
One of my job's will have me interstate for the next eight days. This could prove challenging, trying to get in all the workouts that I want to. I may not be able to produce the podcast for that week either. We'll see.