Training Week 18 Recap

Hi guys,

Happy Easter everyone! I've had a pretty non-eventful Easter weekend so far. I'm actually looking forward to next weekend, where I'll be running the Rotterdam Marathon and going on a short trip through Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Suggestions on what to see and do there are always welcome!

Anyway, a week of rest is followed by a week of pretty hard running. I've cut short the volume in order to maximise the quality of each session. Let's see how I managed.

Tuesday

Type: Threshold

Time and Distance: 40 mins, 7.95 km.

Detail: 10 mins at 11 km/h pace. 1 x 10 min at 14.0 km/h pace, with 3 mins recovery at 8 km/h pace. 1 x 8 min at 14.0 km/h pace, with 3 mins recovery at 8 km/h pace. 1 x 6 mins at 14.0 km/h pace. Purpose was to find my threshold pace.

Thursday

Type: Continuous hills

Time and Distance: 39 mins, 7.7 km.

Detail: 2 sets of 6 hill reps at threshold pace. Recovery of 3 minutes between sets.

Saturday

Type: Long

Time and Distance: 96 mins, 16.6 km.

Detail: Kept the pace and intensity easy the whole way.

Total Weekly Distance: 32.25 km.

Comments: My first week back into running, and also my first week out of 10 weeks of pre-training before I commence the 16-week training programme designed by the FP Run Club. Anyway, how do you spell pain? C O N T I N U O U S - H I L L S. That is probably the hardest running session I've ever done! And I'm still feeling the effects after that run. Unlike the conventional hill session where you run hard up a hill and jog/walk/recover on the way down, continuous hills requires you to run hard up and down a hill, preferably at your threshold pace. The basic idea is that you gain strength, and build running economy and lactate threshold at the same time. This week has placed heavy emphasis on threshold running, which is the key to going faster for longer.

Improvements: It's going to be more of the same for next week. However I also have the Rotterdam Marathon next Sunday, and it's prudent that I don't do myself any damage with these threshold runs right before a 42 km long run. I may have to tone down the intensity of those threshold runs to ensure that I'm reasonably fresh for the marathon. Again, Rotterdam is just going to be another training run, where I need to make a huge conscious effort to go slow!

This week has really challenged my earlier beliefs of running and training. After my conversation with George Anderson from the FP Run Club he advised me not to be tied down to the pace I should be running at, and rather focus on the intensity of training. Pace is always going to vary. It will vary whether I have a good or bad day. It will vary whether I run uphill or downhill. And it will also vary on the weather conditions. Trying to run at a specific pace when it's hot, the course is hilly, or when I haven't fully recovered from a previous session, is likely to lead to over-training, burnout or injury.

Instead, George introduced me to the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE), which allows me to continually assess intensity and ensure a level of exertion that is comfortable or challenging. Training according to intensity is closely linked to training at your target heart rate zone based on your maximum heart rate, e.g. exercising so that your heart rate is between 85 - 90% of your maximum heart rate. At the moment I don't own a heart rate monitor, but I'm thinking of getting one. Does anyone have a favourite? The heart doesn't lie; the harder you work, the more your heart works, the more intense your training is.

The caveat that George mentioned is that maximum heart rate is unique for every person; using the basic formula of 220 minus your age is not going to apply to every runner. So, exercising at a specified zone based on a percentage of your maximum heart rate may not necessarily lead to you exercising at the right intensity based on the RPE scale.

Having said that, I'm still going to record the paces, times and distances that I run in training, but for each session I'm going to pay less attention to the pace I should be running at and focus on perceived intensity instead.

So for my effort at Rotterdam, I'm going to aim for a 6/10. Hopefully that will lead to a sub 4-hour time, but I won't be too disappointed if I go over that, even by a long way! Look out for some photos of Rotterdam (and Amsterdam) very soon!

Happy Easter everyone!

Aaron