Monday, June 25, 2012

Last long run before GCM 10km race on July 1 2012

I managed to do 62km's total for the week ending yesterday, Sunday 24th June 2012. That total is the second highest I have ever recorded on my Garmin for a week of training. Second behind the week I did my first Marathon in 2010.

It seems that doing regular runs of about 10km distance 6 days a week results in relatively easy 60km total for the week. I believe that for me to do a 'good'  marathon I need to gte to the stage where about 90km per week is completely realistic. The long runs of 20km plus are the ones that have damaged me in the past I think, especially when I tried to do them super slow. When I next do marathon training I will hopefully be able to run long and run well without causing damage - by being able to o the runs at a pace that supports good safe form.

Looking at my 60km total for the week I recently did, if I added 10km to a midweek run and 10 to the Sunday long run I still only get 80km's. If I added 1 or 2 kms distance to the other daily runs I will be there. OR I could add another day of running of 10km.. Looking at it this way it seems realistic IF I managed to build up to it.

Its 5 days until my first race this year - and my first race since the August Bridge to Brisbane I did last year. I have no idea what I will be able to do for th 10km distance. Yesterdays 16kms was the best at that distance I have done in years. I got to 12kms in before even looking at my watch to see how far I'd gone, because it was such an easy and pleasant run. I did the last 4km easy too, and finished with an average 5min/km pace over the distance. I feel like I have recovered well today.

My short speed sessions have improved significantly too, but I have not really tested myself over sustained 5-7 minute tempo runs or over 1km intervals recently. I want to be able to sustain at least sub 4mins over 10kms for this race, but I just have no idea how I will do. It should be better ...

Meanwhile this week I will do :

Monday easy recovery 10km+ for 1hr
Tuesday   12 x 200 2 min standing rest
Wednesday easy recovery 10km+  for 1hr
Thursday  10x30  with 30 sec jog recovery
Friday rest
Saturday RACE

I am treating the week as a near enough to normal training week, with the day off shifted to Friday. One speed session this week is a super easy 10x30 speed.

After the race I will begin doing lots of 400 repetition sessions. It seems to be a distance I enjoy running fast. I might gradually build the distance up over comming weeks so that I end up hopefully able to do 10x 1km at same speed of about 3min/km :)  Hah. Maybe one day.