And Back Again

Ah well. Holidays don't last forever, though I sure wish they did, especially this time round. On Wednesday we stepped into the plane in Vienna beneath a blue sky and 27 degrees. It was nice weather all over Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and England, and just as we got near Dublin the clouds appeared and as we stepped out of the plane it was 15 degrees and lashing rain. I did ask myself why I just had not stayed there, but by that time it was too late.

That was the only day this week I did not run. Actually I was tempted to run that day as well as we did not have to leave the house until 1 o'clock but eventually decided that a day's travel was enough stress on my ageing body.

On Monday, still back in eastern Austria, I did a run that should have been fairly easy, 10 miles at 30-50 seconds slower than marathon pace, basically an easy run. Well. I guessed my marathon time would be about 3:10-3:15, because that's what I usually run when I do a marathon for training and it never takes much out of me, so I tried to run about 8-minute pace, bread and butter really. That was the theory. In reality I struggled from the start and it never got any better. While it didn't get much worse either, at the end I was knackered and had to conclude that I could not have run a marathon at that pace, never mind 30-50 seconds per mile faster!

That minor disaster was followed by an easy day and the flight back home, and the first thing on the schedule here in Ireland was a speed workout! I guessed if that would not shake out the legs, nothing would. It was another ladder session and I was actually looking forward to it. This one went very well, the pace was significantly faster than last week for pretty much the same effort, and it left me feeling good! The good news kept on coming when the easy run on Friday was 15 seconds per mile faster than the ones in Austria had been and I figured the higher temperatures had been responsible for the slower pace, which made sense. It would also go a long way explaining the poor performance on Monday, so I thought maybe 7:20 was my present marathon pace after all, at least in Irish conditions.

I put that to the test on Saturday with a 16 mile run with 12 miles of them at marathon pace. I didn't force the pace when I got going and was content to leave it at the 7:28 pace I saw early on the watch. Well. Disaster struck quickly. With each mile I got slower and slower even though the effort remained roughly at marathon pace. I averaged 160 beats for those 12 miles, which would be a bit low for a marathon but seems about right for a training run, but I sure had not expected that towards the end I could not even hold 8-minute pace, even though I was working fairly hard.

That was bad! I am happy enough with my short, fast workouts and the 20 mile run last week went well enough, but my stamina is badly lacking right now. It's not that I hit the wall, things went downhill straight away and got progressively worse. I ran the workout on an empty stomach and without any carbs, so my blood sugar levels were probably low but I run virtually all my workouts on empty and it never tends to be a problem.

Things have definitely improved in the last few weeks but something is definitely still missing, I'll talk to my coach.

Update: The next 2 weeks will be very easy.

15 Aug

10 miles, 1:18:23, 7:50 pace, HR 153

16 Aug

6 miles, 56:51, 9:28 pace, HR 133

17 Aug

0

18 Aug

8 miles, 1:07:47, 8:28 pace, HR 149

   1600-1200-800-600-400-200 at 6:37/6:32/6:26/6:17/5:52/5:00

19 Aug

6 miles, 55:11, 9:11 pace, HR 132

20 Aug

16+ miles, 2:11:00, 8:09 pace, HR 153

   with 12 miles @ 7:53 pace, HR 160

21 Aug

4 miles, 37:29, 9:22 pace, HR 132

Back Down Again

I already knew I had to make changes, last Tuesday's disaster of a workout had shown that very clearly. My problem was, and maybe it was just a perceived problem, that I got an email from my previous coach, whose opinion I still very much respect and value, urging me to more or less stop training altogether for a bit, just so a slow lazy run occasionally when I feel like it and nothing else. One minor problem with that advice is that mentally I always feel like running no matter what the body says, though I get what he meant. The other problem was that my new coach prescribed a different solution. She also had identified the need to rest and recover but instead of a full stop she prescribed a week with much reduced mileage and reduced workouts. After a day of hesitation I decided to get with my coach's plan - after all, I got her onboard to help me with my training and if I go against her recommendations at the first sign of wavering, what on earth would I have a gotten a coach for!

Monday was a very easy day, but Tuesday was the workout day. I wasn't just worrying how my body would handle it, I was also actually worried how MC would take going against his recommendation. The workout was basically just half of last week's run, 4 times 1 minute at 5k pace and 1 minute at 10k/HM pace, and that's it. Just 8 minutes of work and only half of that at some sort of strenuous level. I guess it wasn't just a workout in itself, it was also a test if I could handle any faster running at all.

I got going, and this time completely ignored the paces on the watch, ran entirely by feel, hard for a minute, less hard for another, and repeat, only using the watch to time the minutes.

Well, wouldn't you believe it, this was actually fun! According to the watch my paces were all over the place, though I'm not entirely convinced that the numbers are accurate (6:41 pace followed by 5:32 pace???). I got through the entire workout feeling really good but could also tell that the fun would soon stop if it had been going on for much longer, so I guess the coach got this one just right. I'm actually really glad I went ahead with this, after feeling so good, and so different to last time it just felt - right!

Wednesday was a major recovery day again with a mere 3 miles, something that's hardly worth getting out of bed for. The coach clearly does value recovery just as much.

The sign of a goof coach: have the ability to change things. So far I'm happy.

25 Jul

5 miles, 47:41, 9:32 pace, HR 130

26 Jul

7 miles, 1:01:01, 8:43 pace, HR 141

   6:41/7:13 5:32/7:44 6:05/7:06 5:47/6:28

27 Jul

3 miles, 29:09, 9:24 pace, HR 130

Too Much Too Soon

I've never had a problem with motivation, that's for sure. The problem was generally going too far the other way, and this time I really seem to have overdone it. In my attempt to make changes after that disappointing result in Belfast I got a coach, started strength training, did yoga, started cycling to work - and then it all became a bit too much.

Sunday's run should have been a warning. From the first step I felt lousy. The legs were stiff and heavy, the pace was exceptionally slow and nothing clicked. I've felt this way plenty of times but usually it settles after a mile or two and I eventually start enjoying the run. Not so this time, it pretty much sucked from start to finish and I was actually shocked when I realised just how slow I had run.

A recovery day on Monday was just what was needed and I felt much better, so I chalked Sunday off as one of those days.

It all came back to me on Tuesday. The speed workout was actually fairly mellow: alternating 2 minutes of 5k and 10k/HM effort, 4 times. That's just 16 minutes of work and obviously a lot less strain than, say, a 5k race.

I sure did get the effort wrong!

Part of the problem was that the watch was slow to catch on the pace and I kept seeing 6:40 or 6;45 pace, which surely is not 5k pace, not even right now. At least that happened on the first speed segment, I'm not even sure if I kept checking the watch after that. But the pattern was already set, I kept working very hard on the 5k segments and then the HR barely came down a couple of beats at the slower segments, providing no respite - after the third segment I just could not keep it going any longer, stopped running and went hands on knees for a while just to stop myself from toppling over. Obviously I should have cut my losses at that point and gone home but for some reason I decided to do the 4th segment after all, even though I was perfectly aware that the coach any coach worth that description would have frowned on that. It was even worse after the fourth segment, I actually ended up lying down in the middle of the road to catch my breath.

Ok, at that point I could not fail to see that I was digging myself into a hole at rapid rate. I stopped the extra training, including the cycling, which had the immediate side effect that my quads stopped hurting. My recovery run on Wednesday was actually perfectly fine, so I think I'm alright as long as the level doesn't get over a certain threshold. I guess I need a reality check on my present 5k pace - even now, looking at Tuesday's data it doesn't strike me as particularly fast, though it clearly was too fast on the day.

The coach will have her input. I didn't envisage the first crisis to come so soon!

17 Jul

10 miles, 1:28:36, 8:51 pace, HR 143

18 Jul

4 miles, 37:49, 9:27 pace, HR 129

19 Jul

5 miles, 40:57, 8:11 pace, HR 152

   6:23/6:57 6:31/7:16 6:10/HOK 6:04/XXX

20 Jul

4 miles, 37:11, 9:17 pace, HR 132