My 21k Training

[Ciaran]

You hit the nail on the head there. I've always preached to my buddies starting on C25Ks and such that consistency is the key.

Off for my 5km paced here. I'll post back later.

[Ciaran]

Here's the 5km paced results.

Overall - 25:48.25 AVGHR - 147

Lap 1 - 5:11.28 HR - 136
Lap 2 - 5:12.52 HR - 143
Lap 3 - 5:08.67 HR - 149
Lap 4 - 5:08.31 HR - 150
Lap 5 - 5:07.47 HR - 155

The first lap was poor as there's a slight up and down (over a road bridge) right at the start so it wasn't until near the end of that lap that I could get into a good stride.

Generally I felt okay but I knew that if I pushed it a bit more I would have fell back drastically so I feel I kept my pace steady enough. Mind you, when I turned for the last 1.5km I went straight into a headwind and I really felt the legs pumping!!

Overall I'm very happy with that. I felt I could hit a 25:50 judging it from my interval times but I was also happy that I kept a steady enough pace throughout.

[Ciaran]

So I pushed the week back a day (yesterday was my easy 10km and today I'm doing an easy 30min) so what sort of times should I look to for my fartlek training tomorrow?

[TheEd]

nice going Ciaran .. the fartlek could be at 5k pace or 10k pace according to the intended race distance coming up

TheEd
ps.. ask for clarity if need be

[Ciaran]

Yes please, could you be more specific? I'm not doing the downhill race at the end if April due to work stuff so I'll be following the normal plan from here. What would you recommend then given my recent times?

[TheEd]

consider doing a 5 to 8k time-trial at the end of this week / cycle

so do the fartlek session at event pace you shall be running

3 x 5 minutes @ 5 or 8k pace with 1 minute easy

TheEd

[Ciaran]

So I did 4x5mins.

I finally got the Garmin thing working (I think!) so all the data for todays run is here

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/471525404

I pushed myself to aim for 5:00-5:05 and made it I'd say that's more my 5km pace than 8-10km pace as I know I couldn't have kept it going much more than one or two more reps.

Since I'm doing a half-marathon in May, should I do the longer 8km time-trial this week to give us a better gauge on my distance speeds? How about I do a 30 min tomorrow and then the time-trial on Friday? As I said before, the Saturdays usually don't suit me to do anything more than a 30 minute session.

Let me know if the link works or not.

[Ciaran]

So I did an 8km paced today. The Garmin thing isn't working again so I'll give you the times the good old fashioned way.

8km - 41:40.16 - 5:13/km - AVGHR - 151

Lap 1 - 5:06.14 - HR - 136
Lap 2 - 5:17.04 - HR - 148
Lap 3 - 5:09.64 - HR - 148
Lap 4 - 5:14.01 - HR - 151
Lap 5 - 5:11.20 - HR - 152
Lap 6 - 5:17.25 - HR - 155
Lap 7 - 5:16.86 - HR - 159
Lap 8 - 5:08.02 - HR - 158

So, it's 5 weeks this Sunday to the half-marathon. Should I continue as normal on a 3 week cycle and just change the last two weeks before the race?

Also, what times should I aim for in my intervals this cycle?

[TheEd]

OK .. you do the last 2 weeks of the cycle before the event

this week Thursday you can do the following session

1 x 2k then 3 x 1k

same pace as before

how does this sound to you

TheEd

[Ciaran]

The Thursday session sounds strange since the last cycle I did 4x2Km but there's no problem for me to do what you said there if that's what you recommend. You're the boss

Feeling pumped now.