The Next Step

The training has definitely gone up a notch this week. I am still following my vague outline of a Canova build, and the advice for the last month of the base phase is to add a hilly fartlek run as well as a tempo run once per week.

This meant that the average training pace made a bit of a jump this week. The other by-product is that I was running a lot of miles at race pace or faster. I know that most elites, as well as a lot of not-so-elites, tend to run about 26 miles per week at marathon pace, which makes a lot of sense because the way to get good at running at a certain pace is to run at that certain pace, and now I'm basically trying to do just that myself (minus the elite bit, obviously).

The mileage dropped a bit, which helped keeping the legs reasonably fresh despite the increase in intensity. It is the standard thing to do when you start running faster, though I didn't plan a reduced mileage, just tried to adapt to the way my legs were feeling.

They definitely needed a bit of encouragement after Thursday. I tried to run that tempo run, with 6 miles at roughly half-marathon effort. I haven't raced a half-marathon in well over a year, but figured 6:20 pace should be pretty much it. Unfortunately, on the day itself I never managed to get going properly. Right from the start the pace was not there. The heart rate was quite low and I never managed to push it up to a higher level and I could not even hold 6:30 pace. I figured I was still fatigued from Tuesday's fartlek; I haven't really got any other explanation.

I took it especially easy on Friday to give the legs a break; I also happened to fast all day that day. I was a bit nervous how that would impact on my training, especially on Saturday. Although I had eaten again by the time I hit the road, I wasn't sure if running at a reasonably hard effort with definitely still reduced glycogen levels was really such a great idea, but got a pleasant surprise. I easily managed to run faster for 10 miles than I had managed for 6 on Thursday, and the expected sugar crash never came, so all was good.

My sugar levels definitely hit a high again at Cian's birthday party, but I wasn't the only one who loved Niamh's cake. It wasn't as sugary sweet as the photo suggested (see previous post) as the icing coating was quite thin, but the cake itself was just fabulous. It's a good thing I am a high mileage runner, imagine what I'd look like if all those extra calories weren't burned off day after day!

I decided to take it easy again on Sunday and just go for a fairly leisurely stroll around the lake. Halfway through the run I hit a rough patch that I initially attributed to empty glycogen stores, still a hangover from Friday's fast; when I felt better again a few miles later I dismissed that theory. With about 5 miles to go all of a sudden I decided to inject a bit of pace into the proceedings and dropped the pace from 7:45 to 6:45. It was a spur of the moment thing and initially I thought I'd do it just for one single mile but ended up running that pace for the rest of the run; I guess my glycogen stores were definitely not empty, then.

6 Dec

10 miles, 1:09:14, 6:55 pace, HR 152
   6 miles @ 6:32 pace, HR 159

7 Dec

10 miles, 1:14:46, 7:29 pace, HR 144

8 Dec

10 miles, 1:04:43, 6:28 pace, HR 159

9 Dec

18 miles, 2:14:18, 7:28 pace, HR 144
   13 miles @ 7:45, 5 miles @ 6:45

Weekly Mileage: 76