Sub 35:00 10km

[TheEd]

nice session . Saturday you can do a relaxed hour with the last 15 minutes of the hour at a quicker pace

finish off the session feeling good

TheEd

[NtutuL]

Perfect, that sounds good.

Sunday, just an easy 30-40min at recovery pace or something like that?

[NtutuL]

Did 60 min with a fast finish this morning. Didn't go overboard, settled on a comfortable 4min/km for the last 15 min, aim being to feel good. It's a nice pace and felt controlled.

Have a question, some unfortunate circumstances (I can explain details via email), mean I might not be able to go to the track on Tuesday to do the 10x400m. Is there an alternative session I can do on the road? I have been following the other sub 35 thread and I see sometimes you had JamieH do 3x1600m with 5 min recovery jog?

[TheEd]

you could also do a 3 x 5 minutes @ race pace with 2 to 3 minutes easy in-between, focusing on form more than pushing for pace

it is a feel good session

TheEd

[NtutuL]

Did the 3x5min with 2 min easy in between. Averaged 3:34, 3:32, 3:30 for each split. Difficult to draw much from the session, it was very hot, 28°C when I set out to do my warm up at 17:45/ I did feel good though, was eager for a bit more

Apprehensive for the race on Saturday, but will give it my best shot, and try to follow the guide you wrote up and see what it gets me.

Cheers

[NtutuL]

Interesting race on Saturday. I knew something was up when I got to the finish and there were a few grumblings around. I don't take what my watch measures seriously on a race, taking racing line, errors etc into account, except knowing that GPS watches almost always report longer distance than distance on the road. Anyway my watch recorded 9.75km for the race and I checked with the maps from previous years and a whole block was missed out (even happened on the 2nd lap of the 21.1km). Don't know why. Pity because I'm definitely back on the right track.

My time was 34:45 unofficially. And for about 8km I really ran the run I wanted to though I struggled to kick on from there but didn't slow down much. The finish is a gradual downhill for 2km so was a bit disappointed with that part but it's a change from struggling from 5km last time round. Here are splits from my watch ('true' pace is 2s/km slower usually)

3:28
3:28
3:32
3:39
3:29 (17:35 through 5km, last race 17:39)
3:38
3:45
3:28 (28:28 through 8km, last race 29:16)
3:38
2:39 (3:33/km pace)

Since I don't have a finish time reference point, made a note of the 5km and 8km watch splits, which show a very clear improvement from last race. And for interest sake this run was better than last year by the same comparison, last year my splits were 17:57 add 28:52 through 5km and 8km respectively. Plus it was warmer this year too.

I could feel I had made progress in training and I'm happy it went well on race day. Step closer to sub 35 I think. Just that last 2km that needs work and I'm sure with more sessions the pace for the first 8km will not only feel comfortable, but improve as well taking me closer to and hopefully under that sub 35 mark

Cheers

[TheEd]

It will come naturally, once you have an off period and do a short build-up, you will come back even stronger

patience is the game, and results is the reward

on we go and nice going

TheEd

[NtutuL]

Thanks

Speaking of the off-period, how long do you recommend one stays on the cycles. I've done 2 cycles now. Plan from here is to do races on 11 April and 2 May, which is 2x 3weeks worth, so by 2 May I will have done 4 cycles. I had planned to take 3 or 4 days off running completely after that, then doing 2 weeks off-period, and following that up with the 3 week build-up so I can start a new 10km cycle on Tuesday 16 June. The logic behind that was that as you know May is taper month for Comrades runners, and our race calendar reflects this, so I thought May/June was a good time to squeeze in the build up. This puts me in line to plan some good races without disrupting the flow of the program. Having said that, is it worth doing more 10km cycles after 2 May or does my tentative plan sound okay, real life and other matters permitting of course

Cheers

[TheEd]

the off period is aimed at reviving the enthusiasm and recharging the batteries, it does not have to be 2 weeks, it can be 1 etc

seems like you have it all planned

we train to race

the plan after doing the build-up, is often to maintain the 1hr easy runs where possible, so where the program no says 30 to 40 minutes easy, this can moved up to 1hr

this extra aerobic allows for quicker recovery from sessions and the possibility of racing more often

so lots more to come

TheEd

[NtutuL]

Hi TheEd

Solid 5x2km session today, trying to maintain the effort of previous sessions and getting a little bit quicker, though by no means easier, with each cycle, I've been wearing HR monitor lately, more to make sure I'm not hammering my easy runs, so I wore it for this session as well
Splits:
7:03 (HR avg 162; max 170)
-R90 HR min 111
7:01 (HR avg 169; max 174)
-R90 HR min 124
6:58 (HR avg 173; max 177)
-R90 HR min 128
6:56 (HR avg 175; max 179)
-R90 HR min 131
6:55 (HR avg 176; max 180)

Have no idea what my max HR is, though last year it got as high as 190 on a set of hill sprints. My resting HR is 48-50, never been lower than 48 though I have very low blood pressure (90/70), not sure if that makes a difference.

Do you want me to give you HR feedback in future?

Cheers