One the features of the training system I got introduced to by Mystery Coach a year ago was that base phase should not really feel like training. When things went the way they should I kept sending emails saying “it feels so easy, am I really training?”. It's fair to say that I went off the rails a bit after Dublin this year, but managed to correct course after Sixmilebridge. In fact, ever since that marvellous day, I have felt good every single day.So maybe this weekend was a mistake. Not having the coach makes training feel like a tightrope walk without a net at times. Am I doing the right things or am I falling off? Am I doing too little or too much? Are the runs too slow or too fast? My mileage is a bit lower than at the same time last year, but of course I had to recover from those 30 miles at a strong pace 4 weeks ago. That was fine, until I remembered that last year I was working to being able to run 10 miles fast/20 miles/15 miles over Friday/Saturday/Sunday, and decided to up things a bit this weekend.
Friday's fast pace was shelved because I had inadvertently run that on Wednesday already. In fact, the legs felt a bit heavy early on, but came round very quickly. It was over the weekend that I upped to ant a bit, not 20/15, but 15/15, both times on the very hilly loop around Caragh Lake.Saturday went very well indeed. I expected the legs to struggle on the big climbs during the first half, but I went up totally on autopilot, always a good sign. It had been raining and hail stoning over the first 5 miles but then the weather changed and I really enjoyed the beautiful sunny, calm day for the final 10 miles.
Sunday was always going to be more of a struggle. The legs might have felt fine after Saturday's run, but you never recover fully after only one day. I had to get up early, at 6:30, and was out of the door before 7 o'clock; the early start probably did not help. I still felt fine on the big hills but the legs definitely started dragging during the second half and while I got home still in fine shape, it was unquestionably a lot harder than all the runs since Sixmilebridge. They felt a bit sore for the rest of the day, which makes me wonder if the whole thing had been a bad idea.
Then again, the second leg of a back-to-back run is always tough. That's just the way it is. Anyway, what's done is done. I'll take it easy again early next week.The reason for the early start today had been a trip to Dingle's climbing wall. Shea has been a regular recently, and today the entire family made the journey, including little Maia. There is some pedigree in that regard in my family, and all four of them kept climbing up and down for almost 90 minutes, Shea entirely without fear and the others with increasing confidence. It was great to see.
I just realised, I passed the 5000k mark this morning for 2011. I'll leave the champagne in the fridge, though.
- 16 Dec
- 10 miles, 1:18:39, 7:52 pace, HR 141
- 17Dec
- 15+ miles, 1:56:40, 7:45 pace, HR 149
- 18 Dec
- 15+ miles, 1:59:41, 7:57 pace, HR 144
Weekly Mileage: 78+
5000km! That is fantastic! Well done Thomas, you are really doing very well.
ReplyDeleteWhere did you come across the mystery trainer?
ReplyDeleteanything to bubendorfer the climber of mountains etc etc? a bit of a superstar by all accounts?
ReplyDeleteBreandan, the Mystery Coach used to train someone I know, online and by email only. Then he asked for a volunteer to go through a marathon training cycle and publish the training workouts as well as the result - that turned out to be me.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, the mountain climber of the same name is my second cousin. That's why I mentioned the climbing pedigree in my family. Funnily enough this is the first time in 7 years of blogging that someone asked me that question.
what mountain? The Eiger?
ReplyDeleteMark, he used to hold plenty of speed records, including the Eiger and Matterhorn north faces. His Eiger record lasted for 20 years, and I think some of his records still stand.
ReplyDeleteHi Thomas,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the blog. I'm currently working out how I should about training next so your thorough guide to your coaching and logging has made useful read.
To try and get an idea of how the suggested training and evaluation tests might apply to me it'd be useful to know a few of your HR stats.
One thing I'm curious about is what your resting HR, max HR, HR at lactate threadshold.
You mention that you do your evaluation runs at a HR of 161, is this based on a % of your max HR, %of lactate threshold HR or some other formula?
Your base building miles all seem to be done at a lower HR than this, again is there a guideline for calculating what this might be?
My own stats are resting HR 45, Max HR 186 or there abouts (I've seen 193 on one occasion, but 186 on a several of occasions), lactate thread around 175. I'm guess that most of my miles I should probably be keeping under 155.
Thanks for blog and any feedback/suggestions you can provide
Robert,
ReplyDeletemy max HR is ~190, my resting HR ~44 at the moment (that's quite high, it's usually around 40 and the lowest ever was 36. I've had a bit of a cold for the last few weeks, which I think is responsible for the elevated reading). No idea about the HR at LT.
The 161 for the evaluation is roughly maxHR - 30; the coach came up with that one but the actual value is not as important as using the same value consistently for each evaluation workout.
I don’t check the HR during my easy runs, but they are generally in the low 140s. The coach told me to stay between 140 and 155 during base building, reaching the higher level only once per week, not counting the evaluation. Your HR values are similar to mine, so I guess the coach would suggest you should stick to similar HR values during training as well.
hi thomas. as you know thomas your cousin is a bit of a legend in climbing circles- think michael jordan, zinedine etc etc.
ReplyDeleteanyway well done on a great year. have you considered a intermediate goal like doing a sub 60 in ballycotton.
best of luck in connemara with sub 5 run