Making It Work

Three weeks of training have been covered. A couple of points from my original plan have turned out not to be working for me. First is that I have some significant gaps in my long run. Mainly that it falls apart when I attempt to up the pace beyond anything down at the slow ultra end of the spectrum. No where near the marathon range. Second point is I was trying to cram too many key runs close together. Trying to squeeze in fast 400s, hill reps, a half marathon pace run and a long trail run into one week meant I wasn't performing well in key sessions. Plus it combined to cause some knee trouble requiring a couple of days off running and reducing a weeks volume down to 45km. That won't help if it gets repeated.

The solution can be characterised by doing a little bit less a whole lot better.  For the long run I will focus on bringing up the average pace weekly, rather than pushing out extra kilometres beyond 30km. I know I can run further slowly, but I really need to bring up the base cruising speed. As a result I am eliminating the slow, but long trail run and just look at a steady 30km each week. Supporting this I will drop the fortnightly half marathon pace run to allow focus on upping the pace in the long run.

Dropping the half marathon pace run gives me only 3 key sessions to focus on each week. While it sounds like less, it should actually lead to a higher consistent volume overall and allow for better progression. Remembering that my weeks vary between 7-9 days,  I will usually have two easy days of running between each key session. This seems optimal for me at the moment.

Keeping with above concepts, my race plans have changed a little. For the Australasian Emergency Services Games, I am dropping the 10km cross country from my schedule. Since it was the day before the half marathon, I know that it would have created issues for both races. My heart is really set on hammering the half marathon at the Games. So that's where my focus will be. Plus the 5000m four days before should fit in well.

That should all see me on my way towards a marathon PB.


Comments

  1. PbOrWall12 February 2014 at 21:06

    I like your thinking Jason. I have dropped my training back to 4 days a week (was 5). Have never been a heavy mileage person, but need to build it up for marathon training later in the year. Good luck with it all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown16 February 2014 at 13:02

    Thanks Les. You'd think after all these years I'd know where that line is for when I write out my training plan. As it turns out I still have to learn the hard way.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sandy Point Half Marathon

Image
Any race that uses a picture of myself as promotion makes me think I should compete in it. Wouldn't want to disappoint the masses. Last year my race slow and cold over the same course. A time of 1:30:20, was disappointing and a kick up the backside to get to what really works in training. Since then I have put in a lot of consistent kilometres and have seen some improvement. I was definitely going to race faster this year. Based on my race results over the last few months the hope was to see if I could get down to near 1:24:xx. The weather was very different this year. Far from cold, in fact I think it was our warmest night in a few months. However, there was a Damaging Winds warning issued, with predictions of 65km/hr gales to slow things downs a bit. The winds hit, according to the weather sites: NNE averaging around 50km/hr with gusts of 76km/hr. That made for some interesting race tactics. Luckily the rain held off until after the race. For some reason I felt ready with only 1...
Read more

Fitting Together

It's interesting how easy it suddenly becomes to prioritise aspects of life. I have missed plenty of training in the last week, but for the first time in my life, it really, and I mean really doesn't matter. That's not to say I am throwing training on the back burner. Far from it. Of course I am finding it hard working out how life now all fits together, but I am thoroughly enjoying the process. Training is now just part of the puzzle. What was a very easy load a couple of weeks ago, is now just manageable. This is what I anticipated. As things settle down and I work out of few things the training load should again become much easier. At the moment it looks like I will be able to get in all the key sessions, so in reality it is going fine.
Read more

The Gorge

For work I am currently stationed away from my normal branch. This is a recent roster change that I am not too happy about due to a number of reasons that I won't go into here. The good thing is that it gives me different roads to ride on when commuting. Nothing like a bit of variety to break things up. One particular bit of terrain that I now get to cover is known as the Gorge. It is exactly as the name suggests. The road that takes you into the Gorge is simple. One side is a very wide bend, that could almost be thought of as a straight road. The other side involves a couple of reasonable bends, which wouldn't normally be an issue, but can be when hitting speeds of 60km/hr on the descent. I want to make it clear that the Gorge is far from the toughest of climbs, while quite steep on both sides it is relatively short. So what is it about the Gorge. For me it has provided a good bench mark for my cycling fitness. Back when I first started on the bike it took all my ef...
Read more