Training Week 38 Recap

Afternoon all,

After last week's relative inactivity, this week really picked up the mileage. Good thing that I'm doing absolutely nothing today, apart from my laundry (and even that is proving a challenge!). Today's long run really took it out of me. It was supposed to be a 2 hour 45 minute effort, and I thought I could do around 31 km comfortably. Instead I was a lot slower, though the hills of Oslo would have contributed to that, as well as the heat, which led to some dehydration.

Monday

Type: Mile intervals

Time and Distance: 116 mins 26 secs, 21.6 km.

Detail: Warmed up for 15 mins (2.4 km). Did 10 mile repeats with 60 secs recovery for the first 4, 180 secs recovery after the 4th, 60 secs recovery for the next 5, 180 secs recovery after the 9th, 60 secs recovery after the last. Times were 6:30, 6:30, 6:30, 6:31, 7:00, 6:59, 6:57, 6:57, 6:57, 6:35. Cool down for 20 mins (3.2 km). Average pace per interval was 6:44.6

Tuesday

Type: Recovery

Time and Distance: 30 mins 10 secs, 4.2 km.

Wednesday

Type: Recovery

Time and Distance: 45 mins 42 secs, 7 km.

Thursday

Type: Progression

Time and Distance: 45 mins, 9.4 km.

Detail:

Warmed up for 15 mins (2.4 km). Did 15 mins at marathon pace (3.4 km). Did 15 mins at threshold pace (3.6 km).

Saturday

Type: Intervals

Time and Distance: 63 mins, 12.72 km.

Detail:

Warmed up for 13 mins (2.1 km). Did 5 mins at 10k pace, with 60 secs recovery (approx 1.22 km per interval). Did this 6 times. Cool down for approx 20 mins (3.3 km).

Type: Recovery

Time and Distance: 32 mins 14 secs, 5.3 km.

Sunday

Type: Long run

Time and Distance: 165 mins 30 secs, 28.4 km.

Total Weekly Distance: 88.62 km

Comments: A much better week, and very hard as well. The mile intervals set the tone and the long slow run was the icing on the cake. Because of last week's disappointing Sunday run, I decided to put in some decent mile intervals, which is my number 1 training exercise for my running. And they were hard! Luckily I managed to recover from these and put in other decent efforts as well throughout the week. For the long run, and not being too familiar with Oslo, I mapped out a route on Google Maps beforehand so that I wouldn't get lost. It just so happened that the route was very hilly! Definitely doing a different route in future! 88.62 km is the highest mileage I've done in this round of training, would've been nice to break 90 km. Those damn hills!

Improvements: Another key week next week, and it will be another step up as I enter the final phase of preparation. The long run will now include marathon pace efforts. I really need to find a different, less hilly route for this run. I'm already getting tired just thinking of it.

Well I did manage to regather the momentum this week, and hopefully it will carry over to next week. There are 5 weeks to Berlin, but there will be 2 weeks of key training before the taper period begins. Hopefully I can survive by then.

Counting down,

Aaron