Monday, March 23, 2009

Overload Training

For a change the most important sporting event over the weekend wasn’t my training runs but Ireland’s Rugby team win over Wales in the Six nations Tournament, thereby achieving the Grand Slam for the first time in 61 years (and, as one commentator put it, fulfilling their destiny). Even though I much prefer soccer to rugby I got completely sucked into the hype for the game, and the celebratory mood seems to have swept away the general darkness of recession for a while.

I still went running, of course. In fact, I ran a lot.

After two tempo-style workouts a recovery run was the only option for Saturday, and I got up bright and early for my 6 mile run. The rest of the day was mainly spent on chores and looking after Cian and Maia while Niamh was in Cork with the twins. This is at least a tiring as a tough run.

Somehow Sunday has become my traditional speed day. I had done the last of the 60/60 workouts last week, and following this article I moved on to 180/180. I quickly found out that this is a completely different workout. The thing about 60/60s is the short recovery time, and the HR goes up and up. 3 minutes of recovery, on the other hand, unfailingly brought my heart rate down below 140 each time. Unsurprisingly I was not able to run at the same pace, and the entire workout turned out to be a set of half-mile repeats. The average pace was 6:01, but if you left out the first one it would have been 5:57. Maybe I should add more strides to my warm-up routine, because I generally tend to feel stiff and awkward on the first repeat.

Since it was a nice sunny day (the last one for a while, apparently) we went for yet another family hike, this time a shorter trip up to the top of the Devil’s Elbow. This happens to be the place where my header photo had been taken; you should be familiar enough with it by now. We were back at the car within an hour, and I hoped my legs hadn’t taken much extra fatigue onboard.

Last week I had a great 22 mile run, and today called for the last really long run of the schedule, 24 miles. The distance didn’t worry me, after all this was just a bit longer than last week. What I was not looking forward to was the ridiculously early time I had to be out of bed. As it turned out, things were a lot worse than imagined; I was unable to sleep most night, and didn’t even need the alarm at 4:20. I was up 5 minutes early to make a bottle for Maia who didn’t have the best of nights herself. I had gotten less than 3 hours of sleep at that stage, and even those had been interrupted several times. It was so early that I needed the headlamp again for the first time in a few weeks. Once the sky brightened up a little bit I could see a few ominously dark clouds, and the wind was at gale force strength at times. Last week I had started slowly and gotten faster gradually. Today I was merely slow. I think the mental fatigue from lack of sleep was just as much responsible for that as the actual fatigue in my legs. I just kept plodding on, barely awake at times. I did manage to work out that with the slow pace I would have to cut the run short, or I would have been seriously late for work. I reset my expectations to 23 miles. Eventually, after over 13 miles, I finally started to shake myself awake, threw in a few surges and generally upped the pace. Believe it or not, the run felt easier from then on; finally I had something to focus the mind on rather then crawling along on autopilot. Not that I started flying, but at least the pace finally dropped under 8:00 minutes per mile.

I eventually returned home weary and tried after over 190 minutes. I had just spent more time running than I had slept during the entire night, and I remarked to Niamh that finally I might have overdone things. One lesson I learned is that running 22 miles on fresh legs is a completely different task to running 23 miles on tired ones. Starting long runs with heavy legs after a preceding speed or tempo workout is a good way to build your endurance. However, once the distance goes beyond 20 miles I’m better off recovering first.

I have done some savage training over the last 5 days, and the hardest block of training is definitely behind me now. With 4 weeks to go I hopefully have left enough time for the body to absorb the work. I have one more tough long workout in the schedule; next week I’ll try and run 20 miles with 10 miles at 7:30(ish) pace and 10 miles at marathon goal pace. But I’ll slightly re-jig my schedule and make sure to have an easy recovery day prior to that. Don’t say I never learn.
21 Mar
6 miles, 49:53, 8:19 pace, HR 135
22 Mar
8 miles, 1:00:38, 7:36 pace, HR 155
incl. 5x180/180 @ 6:18, 5:57, 5:55, 6:07, 5:50 (6:01 avg)
23 Mar
23 miles, 3:11:03, 8:18 pace, HR 140

Weekly mileage: 81.5

10 comments:

  1. GREAT DETERMINATION THERE ON YOUR PART TO GET YOUR LONG RUN IN, WORKING NIGHTS FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS i KNOW WHAT ITS LIKE TO TRAIN ON LIMITED SLEEP, BUT i DON'T THINK EVEN i WOULD BE WILLING TO GET UP AT SUCH A UNGODLY HOUR!
    BY THE WAY ARE YOU PLANNING A YASSO 800 TO PREDICT YOUR BOSTON FINISHING TIME!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thomas - I have the same issue w/ the first repeat. To remedy this, I typically do 2 x 200m at about 85% effort after I get in my standard warm up.

    I'm sure some strides would do the trick as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I did my big 24 miler 2 weeks ago and I took it really slow just to make sure I didn't ruin the rest of the week. My 20 miler taper was last week and it was much more tolerable. As a complete aside I also had a crap night's sleep last night but at 4:20 I was up for a pee with 2.5 hours more in the scratcher!

    I think the mental fortitude that these long runs and winter running give you pay great dividends at race time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It makes me tired just thinking about your lack of sleep and running on tired legs. You need some rest man!

    ReplyDelete
  5. The first 13 miles certainly sounds like a fast version of sleep walking. It's a fine line between determination and lunacy. Savage running though!

    ReplyDelete
  6. savage running...aaaarrggh gotta love that running talk!

    ReplyDelete
  7. As Mike said, some fast short runs will get you warmed up for the 180s is you want to run a good time for the first one.

    Be careful not to overdo things - sounds like you're dangerously close to the wrong side of the recovery curve.

    Keep on learning - that's half the fun of this sport.

    ReplyDelete
  8. savage training because you are a savageman! (p.s. thanks for your e-mail, i need to reply! part of the answer is: I'm seriously considering coming to boston just to see you and my friend Ray (http://dcrainmaker.blogspot.com/) who you should meet cuz you're both nutz.
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thomas, your training has been very solid; I would be really pleased. I don’t envy your sleep situation though. I wouldn’t worry about the 23-miler and I couldn’t agree with you more regarding a long run on tired legs (lately Jon has scheduled a recovery day before my long runs).

    From what I can tell I have two key w/o’s left, a hilly 20km+ at MP next week, followed by 10km+ at HMP the following week (again hilly). I guess it’s time to prep our legs for Boston! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good luck with your efforts to reach sub 3. I'm chasing 3:30!

    ReplyDelete