i have had a few interesting weeks of training with some real highs which have been more than matched by the lowest lows i have experienced during the last few years that i have taken up running. while i am running less weekly volume than i have in the past for my marathon build up this time around i have focused my training on more marathon specific workouts. the principles are taken from the coach canova which i took from posting he added to the letsrun forum some time ago.
i have been reading and re-reading my running books from authors such as daniels and pfitzinger and the thing that really stood out to me was the key weekly sessions were focused around long marathon paced and threshold sessions. well i thought i would take it one step further and incorporate specific marathon preparation training were i run two quality sessions back to back. often a marathon paced session followed up with a session at threshold pace or quicker with the total daily volume for the two workouts around 30km give or take.
what i have noticed in all this. well it has been a tough couple of weeks. and while i have been running good quality sessions the rest of my life gradually fell apart and last week a fell into the abyss which had opened up. looking at my log it was easy to see where i had gone astray with over 52% of my weekly miles run quicker than marathon pace (3:30-4:10/k). however, after a few easy days (including a great 22km afternoon run in the national park on the trails) things starting turning around and by the weekend i was feeling ready to roll again.
so when last sunday rolled around i was feeling pretty tired from the week behind me and the 20 odd kilometres of running from the previous day. with thoughts of trying to get out for a two hour run gradually slipping away along with the daylight i eventually made it out onto the road. i had no intentions of running hard and i thought i would just try and push it along at what i hoped was marathon pace effort.
as i have been getting progressively fitter (and faster) over the last few weeks i have tried to stop looking at the devices which i am often connected to (hrm, garmin etc) and tried to run by effort. it seemed to be working and i was feeling good. so after about 20 mins of running i glanced at the garmin and i noticed that the average pace was sitting on 3:50. a bit quick but well……i was feeling good so i thought i would try and hold that pace for as long as i could and see if i could improve on my 10k from a few weeks back. things felt comfortable till around the 7.5k mark but then the effort started to build and i had to dig a little deeper to maintain the pace. i had stopped looking at the watch but with a 100m to go before reaching the 10km distance i saw that i had 16 seconds to run the last 100m to go sub 38 minutes which was the goal i had set myself at the start of the year. short story, ran the last 100m in 21 seconds to finish up the 10km in 38:05. in hindsight, if only i had looked a little sooner i think i would have nailed it - next time! the run continued with 1km easy, 4km at marathon pace (actually 4:06) and a solid 5km of climbing around the hills. thought about pushing through another kilometre to set a new 21.1km best time but was content to finish the run with 20km. great session to restore some mental centredness, hope and confidence!
it seems that i have knocked off about two minutes or so off my 10km over the previous two months with this training cycle. all other running paces are feeling easier except of course those cursed recovery runs (ok if you know me you know they are not a big part of my weekly schedule and i should concentrate on them a bit more in the future). perhaps i am on to something good here!
with the drop in training volume though i am a little concerned that when it comes around to the marathon i will be in great half marathon shape. time to address this situation with a couple of higher volume weeks which will include a weekly long run or two to rebuild the endurance base.
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