Monday was an 8 x 400m fast interval session. Fast it certainly was! Each 400m interval was about 6:30 min/mile and certainly got my heartrate up. But it recovered quickly and I was able to keep this pace for all 8 sessions which I was pleased about.
Wednesday was long run day. After last week, I really felt that I should try a longer distance so I set off to cover 13 miles which is the furthest I have run in one go (previously it was about 11 miles). I had set myself a pace of around 8 to 9 min/mile so that I wasn't going too slowly or quickly. My average on the main part of my run was 8:19 which was really good. My legs were so tired in the last quarter of the distance and my heartrate slowed showing that it was my legs rather than fitness that were the problem. I ran the 13 miles in 1:48:51 though which was my original predicted half marathon time a few weeks ago. I am so pleased to have completed the distance and it gives me something to work on now although I will shorten my long runs for a few weeks to be able to focus on speed.
Friday I went out and did what I thought would be a fairly easy pace interval session with intervals being around 7 mins/mile. This was tough going, but I managed to keep my average pace at just under 7 for all but one interval (that one being 7:03). My legs were really tired still after the long run, so this was really good.
Friday night I decided late on that I was going to try the 5k Saturday morning run for the first time. I arrived and was surprised to see so many people there. We set off and I probably started too quickly. I had set myself a target of 7:30 per mile and managed to keep to this for most of the race. I was chuffed to finish my first 5k in 23:27 and in at number 32! Checking my stats later I am 4th in my age group overall which is pretty amazing really. For me anyway!
One thing I need to focus on is nutrition. I am going to have to try these energy drinks and recovery drinks as I know as a veggie my diet isn't massively high in protein and I do seem to run out of energy on a race. Looking into Science in sport and High5 and will see if I can try these out and hopefully get some good results.
Focussing on intervals again this week and will probably throw in a steady 5 miles too.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Tempo vs Interval?
Well, this has been a busy week. I did an easy 3.5 miles on Monday as my legs were so tired from the hard training over the weekend. It's not often I do easy runs, so it felt a bit strange, but I definitely needed it.
Tuesday I took little madam up to the athletics track and we ran a bit together until she complained her legs were tired so we jogged back home again. The dog had fun!
Wednesday I did 1.5 miles to the opticians and then a 10.5 mile long run averaging 8:37 min/mile which I was pleased with as this is the longest I have been able to run for quite a while. My legs were definitely tired at the end though although my heartrate was good.
Thursday was a very much needed rest day. My knees were quite sore and I was worried that they were going to get really bad again. Keeping my fingers crossed that they will be okay.
Friday I did a tempo run and apart from the hills that slowed me down (along with my legs still being tired from Wednesday), I didn't do too badly and managed an average pace of 7:48 min/mile on the three miles tempo bit.
I did do quite a bit of research on effective training techniques this week and there is so much conflicting advice! I had read on Runner's World that tempo sessions were the most important type of session as it trained your body to run at the pace you needed to achieve in a race. So I had planned a weekly tempo session into my calendar. Then I found some more interesting research from a sport journal. The author was citing research that showed that interval training was actually better at improving your speed even though this meant less mileage during the week. They gave several different sessions to try so I have programmed them into my Garmin ready for use.
At the moment I don't feel like I am running 10k at the speed I could achieve so with two 10ks before the half marathon, I am trying to focus on that while still incorporating a weekly long run to build my endurance. One thing my Garmin is doing is making sure that every run has a focus rather than just running to cover miles which is probably what I was doing before.
I have also done some research on hill running and tried to use a different technique on the hills I encountered on my long run. What a difference! I followed the advice and kept myself upright while shortening my stride and my pace, although slowed, was not as slow as it has been when I have been running hills before. I felt more like my legs were doing the work, so I intend to keep this up and make sure they are stronger. I still dread hills at the moment. I need to love them. Hmm, bit more work needed on that yet!
I cancelled my session yesterday as I was just too tired... Today I did a 4 x 1200m interval session at 5k pace. Well, I say 5k pace, but I found it difficult to run that slowly over a shorter distance. It just didn't feel like a hard workout and my heart rate showed that. I know how important it is to keep to the right pace so you don't deplete your resources, so I will have to work on this and keep the faster paces for the shorter distances at the moment.
Well I will keep researching this week and see what else I can find to help me achieve even better times. A new pb in June? Maybe...
Tuesday I took little madam up to the athletics track and we ran a bit together until she complained her legs were tired so we jogged back home again. The dog had fun!
Wednesday I did 1.5 miles to the opticians and then a 10.5 mile long run averaging 8:37 min/mile which I was pleased with as this is the longest I have been able to run for quite a while. My legs were definitely tired at the end though although my heartrate was good.
Thursday was a very much needed rest day. My knees were quite sore and I was worried that they were going to get really bad again. Keeping my fingers crossed that they will be okay.
Friday I did a tempo run and apart from the hills that slowed me down (along with my legs still being tired from Wednesday), I didn't do too badly and managed an average pace of 7:48 min/mile on the three miles tempo bit.
I did do quite a bit of research on effective training techniques this week and there is so much conflicting advice! I had read on Runner's World that tempo sessions were the most important type of session as it trained your body to run at the pace you needed to achieve in a race. So I had planned a weekly tempo session into my calendar. Then I found some more interesting research from a sport journal. The author was citing research that showed that interval training was actually better at improving your speed even though this meant less mileage during the week. They gave several different sessions to try so I have programmed them into my Garmin ready for use.
At the moment I don't feel like I am running 10k at the speed I could achieve so with two 10ks before the half marathon, I am trying to focus on that while still incorporating a weekly long run to build my endurance. One thing my Garmin is doing is making sure that every run has a focus rather than just running to cover miles which is probably what I was doing before.
I have also done some research on hill running and tried to use a different technique on the hills I encountered on my long run. What a difference! I followed the advice and kept myself upright while shortening my stride and my pace, although slowed, was not as slow as it has been when I have been running hills before. I felt more like my legs were doing the work, so I intend to keep this up and make sure they are stronger. I still dread hills at the moment. I need to love them. Hmm, bit more work needed on that yet!
I cancelled my session yesterday as I was just too tired... Today I did a 4 x 1200m interval session at 5k pace. Well, I say 5k pace, but I found it difficult to run that slowly over a shorter distance. It just didn't feel like a hard workout and my heart rate showed that. I know how important it is to keep to the right pace so you don't deplete your resources, so I will have to work on this and keep the faster paces for the shorter distances at the moment.
Well I will keep researching this week and see what else I can find to help me achieve even better times. A new pb in June? Maybe...
Saturday, April 12, 2008
New Half Marathon Predicted time
Just checked out what my predicted half marathon time would be based on current 10K pb. It is 1:43:53...
That means a pace of 7:55 per mile - OW!
That means a pace of 7:55 per mile - OW!
Following on from Wakefield...
Hi. I have decided to do this to try and keep myself motivated with my running and hopefully achieve a good half marathon time in September and a new PB at the end of November. Hopefully...!
Two weeks ago I ran the Wakefield City 10K. It was the first race I have done this year and it was a last minute decision as I had been ill for about two weeks at that point and wasn't sure whether I was fit enough to run it let alone get a good time. I arrived early (as usual!) and got registered. It was absolutely freezing and the clocks had just gone forwards so getting up at 5am old time was very hard. Having got myself warm I went to find the toilets before heading off to the starting line and bumped into somebody I hadn't seen for two years which was really nice. We had a chat and she had only just started running and this was her first 10K. We wished each other luck and I headed off to walk to the starting line.
There were no timing signs so I positioned myself relatively near to the front as I was hoping to finish in around 48 mins which would beat my previous pb by 1 min 20 secs. The sun came out just as the race was about to start and I was able to take off one of my thermal layers! We started and I set off quickly hoping to use other people as a guide to my pace. After running for about ten minutes I realised that I hadn't seen any km markers so had no idea as to how fast I was going so just carried on using my training pace plus a bit. I didn't actually see any km markers until 4km and by that time I had just thought sod it - keep going and see how I do. I did start to see more markers just as the course went uphill, but looking at my watch I realised that I was on for a good time if I could just keep going.
The last km seemed to go on FOREVER but finally I saw the finish line. My watch said 47 mins 8 secs which was another 2 mins 12 secs off my previous PB. WOW!
On the Runner's World website people were saying they were going by their garmin time. I had always thought garmins were like tomtoms, but when I looked them up there are other kinds. So after some research and serious blagging I manged to get a forerunner 305 quite cheap. What an amazing bit of equipment. Even though my legs were tired I managed a 9 mile run with my virtual training partner on Wednesday. I even managed to keep up with him for most of the way. Looking at the stats when I got back I realised that the stretch of road I always struggled on and thought it was just because it was open and always windy was in fact a long hill. Well that explains that then.
I have been making good use of my new favourite toy this week. I did a long run on Wednesday in a really good time thanks to keeping a close eye on my pace. I have done an 8 x 400m speed session where I noticed how quickly my heart rate returned to normal which was good. The 10 x hill session this morning was a bit of a killer but hopefully when I repeat it I will be able to see an improvement over time. I have to tackle these hills if I am going to manage the Stonegate Road hill killer in September.
My predicted time for half marathon was 1:48:47 after the Abbey Dash. This means running at 8 min 19 secs per mile (5 min 9 sec per km). I hope that I can beat that time and will be starting to include tempo sessions into my training once a week.
So my training sessions for this week will hopefully be: 5 miles including 3 miles tempo at about 8:15 I think. 10 mile long run. Speed session. Hill session (argh!).
Two weeks ago I ran the Wakefield City 10K. It was the first race I have done this year and it was a last minute decision as I had been ill for about two weeks at that point and wasn't sure whether I was fit enough to run it let alone get a good time. I arrived early (as usual!) and got registered. It was absolutely freezing and the clocks had just gone forwards so getting up at 5am old time was very hard. Having got myself warm I went to find the toilets before heading off to the starting line and bumped into somebody I hadn't seen for two years which was really nice. We had a chat and she had only just started running and this was her first 10K. We wished each other luck and I headed off to walk to the starting line.
There were no timing signs so I positioned myself relatively near to the front as I was hoping to finish in around 48 mins which would beat my previous pb by 1 min 20 secs. The sun came out just as the race was about to start and I was able to take off one of my thermal layers! We started and I set off quickly hoping to use other people as a guide to my pace. After running for about ten minutes I realised that I hadn't seen any km markers so had no idea as to how fast I was going so just carried on using my training pace plus a bit. I didn't actually see any km markers until 4km and by that time I had just thought sod it - keep going and see how I do. I did start to see more markers just as the course went uphill, but looking at my watch I realised that I was on for a good time if I could just keep going.
The last km seemed to go on FOREVER but finally I saw the finish line. My watch said 47 mins 8 secs which was another 2 mins 12 secs off my previous PB. WOW!
On the Runner's World website people were saying they were going by their garmin time. I had always thought garmins were like tomtoms, but when I looked them up there are other kinds. So after some research and serious blagging I manged to get a forerunner 305 quite cheap. What an amazing bit of equipment. Even though my legs were tired I managed a 9 mile run with my virtual training partner on Wednesday. I even managed to keep up with him for most of the way. Looking at the stats when I got back I realised that the stretch of road I always struggled on and thought it was just because it was open and always windy was in fact a long hill. Well that explains that then.
I have been making good use of my new favourite toy this week. I did a long run on Wednesday in a really good time thanks to keeping a close eye on my pace. I have done an 8 x 400m speed session where I noticed how quickly my heart rate returned to normal which was good. The 10 x hill session this morning was a bit of a killer but hopefully when I repeat it I will be able to see an improvement over time. I have to tackle these hills if I am going to manage the Stonegate Road hill killer in September.
My predicted time for half marathon was 1:48:47 after the Abbey Dash. This means running at 8 min 19 secs per mile (5 min 9 sec per km). I hope that I can beat that time and will be starting to include tempo sessions into my training once a week.
So my training sessions for this week will hopefully be: 5 miles including 3 miles tempo at about 8:15 I think. 10 mile long run. Speed session. Hill session (argh!).
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