Go Hard

The family decided get all germy, and apparently it's nice to do everything together. For the most part I tend not to get too unwell. So when I developed a fever and other fun things that go along with it, I decided to take a couple of days off training. That should do the trick and have me back healthy and ready for some good sessions. Those two days extended out to a week with no training and some days off work. Not quite how I planned it, but it is what it is. Since then I have been for a handful of very easy runs, and they were definitely the maximum I should be doing. Just enough to tick the body over and a reminder of what it has coming back to it, but not too much to send me backwards. Historically that would be a struggle mentally. This time it hasn't. Maybe I've been lucky enough there's been plenty of other stuff to keep me occupied. Still I am keen to get back to training properly. I think I am nearly back to normal, so over the next couple of day...

After sooking my way through the cold of winter I've been quite pleased by the warm weather lately. So have the reptiles too apparently. A blue tongue lizard tried to make a home in our yard. I haven't seen my friend Tigey yet. With the extra sunshine comes a few changes. Longer days and shorter nights welcome in daylight savings and luckily we remember to change our and clocks and Prime Minister (or something like that). The most obvious difference when running is the increased need for water. For the most part I am guided by thirst. This works fine during the colder weather. When it heats up I find thirst sometimes isn't quite enough of a stimulus for some of the moderate to longer runs. It could just be habits, but I tend to fall on the under-drinking side of the scale. It's fine in the short term, but once the distance extends out the lack of hydration starts to show up. While I like the concept of listening to the body, sometimes it's the interpretation th...

Progressing goes beyond basic mathematics ( see Training Progression ). Another session that makes a regular appearance is what I tend to call my Med-Long Run . On top of a warm up and cool down I am running 20km at a pace between 5:31-4:53/km. The run is over mixed terrain, definitely including a few hills. Onto the basics progress is made by extending the distance gradually out to 30km. Once I have achieved that then the pace can be increased, starting back at the 20km to a range of 4:53-4:35/km. Sounds straight forward, but it isn't quite that simple. Ideally I'd like to extend the distance each week, but over the last month that hasn't happened. A big part of progressing goes beyond the external numbers and you have take into account the internal load. Being able to complete the session isn't always enough. When I first covered the 20km at the desired pace, the recovery requirement was high. Four days afterwards my legs were flat and struggling. I definitely wasn...

Without getting into all the extra physiology details, I want to talk about defining my training progression. At risk of sounding like a generic goal setting fluff post I have to point out that having a definitive and measurable goal is the first step. The usual goes in here; a time frame, and an objective end point that gives a pass or fail result. This can be anything like, I want to run sub 5:15 for the Two Bays Trail 56km race on 17th January next year, or be able to run 60km without walking by August 2016. Both those examples give a clear line where you can either claim to have achieved the goal or not. Close is not a pass mark. In it's simplest form, progression can be basic mathematics. In distance running there are two main ways of making a run harder. Increase the distance Increase the speed For my long run I aim to hold a pace between 5:31 - 6:00/km. I started at a distance of 25km, and progress by adding 5km once I can successfully hold the pace for the full dis...