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The Middle Ground
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4 deliberately much slower (c.9:10 pace) easy miles this morning.
Nice interval sessions from DT and Andrew.
I managed to squeeze in 27 miles Tue-Thurs last week, before going to Dublin on Friday for a family wedding... I thought that was it. However, I realised just before setting off that I was only a few miles from a parkrun, so packed my kit and headed to St Anne's park on Saturday. Got there too early as it was a 9:30 start, so did almost 5 miles warm up before a 20:07 5K for 15th place. I then drank a lot of Mojitos and red wine.
So, 35 miles running and 22 on the bike ... bike commute today and I have DT's "1200, 1000, 800, 600 and 400 off 2 min" tomorrow to kick off this week's running.
Excellent squeezing and parkrunning Dr Dan.
Good work, Andrew.
Juts to be clear the session in the book is off 200 metres. I just decided that was mental so applied a standard 2 minutes.
17 miles in the mid afternoon sun yesterday came out 8.50 pace. As I usually do these around 8mm, the time on feet was equivalent to 19 miles.
Recovery treadmill later for 20 minutes then a spin class. Last week was 42 miles plus 2 x spin and some strength, so that is roughly where I want to be each week.
1200m, 4:49, 149/156 bpm, should have been 4:34 based on Saturday's 5K time.
200m rec
1000m, 4:06, 150/158 bpm, should have been 3:45...
200m rec
800m, 3:14, 150/159 bpm, should have been 2:59...
200m rec
600m, 2:22, 151/159 bpm, should have been 2:13...
200m rec
400m, 1:34, 145/154 bpm, should have been 1:27...
Actually, these interval times are pretty close to what I should be doing if I worked out my 5K time based on my actual marathon time, rather than a 5K/parkrun.
This is the issue I have. If I calculate my interval paces off my 10 mile and above times I simply wouldn't hit them. Therefore I use the paces for 18.50/19.00 minutes as my range. If I used this 5k time to set my other run paces it wouldn't really hit the mark.
The thing with doing it on the treadmill is that you will hit the paces as you have to physically slow it down, whereas on the road, it is easier to let the pace drift off target. Frankly I find the paces I use suitably unpleasant so know I am hitting the right spot in terms of intensity.
Coincidentally your discussion ties in with something I've been considering this week. Due to time constraints I only have time for a tempo session and an intervals session this week as my 2 quality sessions (no slot free for a long run) and one of those will need to be shoehorned into a small window tonight.
So I was planning doing a short pyramid session tonight - 2x 200, 400, 600 with recovery jogs (of the same distance, or is 600m recovery too much?).
As I have a shorter distance bias (as discussed with DT recently) I'll be taking paces off my 5k times. So currently 6.39m/m pace. The question I had was whether to bother having different paces for the 3 rep distances (as Dan appears to have done above) or just do the same pace for each?
Yes, the session we use gives graduating paces, so whilst the period of time under stress reduces in Dans session, the pain and suffering is much the same as the paces run are accordingly faster. Essentially, if your 200m pace is correct, it would be too difficult to sustain for 600m. Conversely if your 600m pace was correct, it wouldn't challenge at 200m.
Personally, I don't think there is a great cardio/vo2 gain from 200m at 5k pace, or any pace. The main purpose of reps below 400m from my reading is to practice form and leg turnover/cadence. Most intervals I see where 200m is used, is normally just as a kicker to perhaps 5 x 800m
So based on the advice above (and the current Daniels based training pace of 6:39m/m for intervals) I aimed to do the 600m reps at 6:39 pace, 400m reps around 6:25-6:30 pace and the 200s a bit faster (but possibly slightly slower than full out strides pace).
Did a mile warm up (not really enough I know, but time was pushing me) then:
200m @ 6:11 pace
200m jog
400m @ 6:23 pace
400m jog
600m @ 6:40 pace
600m jog
600m @ 6:37 pace
600m jog
400m @ 6:25 pace
400m jog
200m @ 5:51 pace
200m jog
1 mile warm down.
Felt good. Recoveries were probably longer than they needed to be, so next time I would probably do one 800m rep in the middle and cut the recoveries down to no more than 400m (probably only 200m for the 200s and 400s, and 400m for the 600s and 800), thus keeping the overall volume similar.
Decent session, Andrew. I would suggest one or other of the two adaptions (unless you found the session really easy) to the session in one hit.
I was supposed to do 5 x 1k. Referring back to the conversation above, the paces are very challenging. My target pace was 3.30, which I hit because I was on a treadmill. I cut it down to 4 x 1k as I was still feeling the effects of a 2.5 hour run sunday and felt like I had got what I needed from the session doing 4 x 1k.
Spin session over lunch.
11 miels bike commuting for me today ... 2 x 5mi run commuting tomorrow.
Had a pretty active day. Trying to hammer press ups at present so did 50 before work in one hit, then a really hard threshold session on bike over lunch, followed this evening by a work 6 a side match then 30 more press ups when home.
Ok, so for me that would be like doing them at 6.25-6.30 pace, which is what I was doing my 400 and 600m reps at on Tuesday. Can see how 5x1k would be a pretty unpleasant session!
Followed up with 4.5 very sweaty miles yesterday afternoon. Have a tempo session lined up for later this afternoon, but may have to cut it a bit short depending on how hot it is and how I am coping with it. No point wrecking myself for 1 extra mile at tempo pace.
First 3 weeks completed with a 14.3 mile run yesterday. Weeks 1 & 3 are my "usual" weeks if working and if normal weekend. Week 2 was disrupted by the Dublin trip at the weekend but still pretty much on track (replaced Sunday's run with an extra run-commute day).
I'm considering whether to replace, or at least alternate, Tuesday's intervals with a 8-10 mile MP run. I think doing 5K at 5KP every Saturday parkrun already ticks the aerobic-speed session box in many ways.
I often feel the same after a cricket match, which is why for the summer I have switched my week around a bit to get most of my miles in by Friday night and then just do a recovery type run on a Sunday.
4.5 last night. Started very stiffly with a 10m/m opening mile but loosened up as it went along and the final couple of miles felt good.
Dan - that's some very good mileage, and plenty of biking too. Keep at it!
20 didn't happen. My hip and upper quad were very tight and I was worried about the lasting damage 20 would do. I talked myself out of it by 3 miles and then diverted home at 7.5 feeling quite unhappy. I then took a last minute dodge and ended up doing 15 miles. Annoyingly I felt pretty good by then and if I wasn't running passed my house, could have happily kept on.
I did also have 1 eye on Wednesday evenings 10k, so 15 provided a happy medium.
That sounds sensible Dr Dan. I think there is more to gain from mp work than intervals (in the context of mara training) particularly when you are getting a weekly 5k hammering.
yes, Wednesday still looks warm, but it is forecast to be very still.
I find flats very good, particularly if you keep them purely for race days.
As discussed above, I switched my 3 x 1 mile sesh for 10.6 miles at MP (7:48/mi at 75.7% maxHR). Based on this and parkrun, my fitness levels are somewhere in the region they were 6-7 weeks before London, which is good news as it's still13 weeks until Chester.
All sounds promising Dan. Your MP session sounds harder to me than 3x1 mile (even at approaching 5k pace) would be though. Suppose that is the difference in mindset of a marathon runner as against someone who has never raced longer than 10k.
Tempo session tonight.
Good luck at the 10k tonight DT.
Unlucky DT - sometimes these things just affect us without us really knowing it.
Did 6 miles last night including 2 at tempo in the middle (7:21 and 7:15) along the river - very pleasant, but the footing isn't the best so you have to keep your wits about you!
Yes, running shows up issues that normal day to day living wont. I ve had a proper dose of stomach ache and upset for last 12 hours now so must have been something in me which is hopefully being removed now.
Good session last night. Yes, do need to be careful when running at effort on unstable ground.
That would explain it then! Hope you get over it sooner rather than later. Maybe take it easy this weekend until it is fully out of your system though?
Ground isn't that uneven, but I wouldn't be doing any kind of pace session along it in winter, that's for sure.
Planning an easy run this evening and then an intervals session tomorrow (4x1k off 90 secs).