Perfect in that I came very close to following my training plan almost exactly - in the end I fell 2 X 400 and 6 X 10 second uphill sprints short of completing the week as prescribed (and wound up with 8 extra minutes of tempo). This is huge for me. I have a hard time following other people's training plan in part because I arrogantly tend to believe that I know better than other people what I, as an athlete, need (though I notice that I never seem to follow my own plan) and in part because the logistics of our lives are such that it is hard to follow ANY plan (plan to get to daycare on time, plan to get to work on time, plan to get the family fed, plan to stick to a budget, plans in general tend not to work in PPC's Planet of Disorder & Chaos).
But somehow this plan is sticking. And I am really enjoying it and moreover, learning lessons I had long forgotten... just basic stuff like, the easy days have to be easy so that hard days can be hard. You have to run long to build basic physiologic building blocks. 75 minutes does not constitute long... just basic stuff I had forgotten. So anyway, here is what week of nearly perfectly executed training looked like:
Monday - 16.8 km including 8 miles of alternating mile @ 7:45, mile @ 6:10 (ran 6:08, 6:05, 6:05, 6:03)
Tuesday - off
Wednesday - 63 minutes easy including 6 X 10 second hill sprints and one unscheduled tempo around one of my favorite 2.2 km loops
Thursday - off
Friday - 64 minutes easy pushing Thing 2 in stroller
Saturday - track work-out, eek! 10 X 400 m (was supposed to be 12) - averaged 78.9 - fastest (76.4 - wound up racing someone) slowest 80.8. total 14.6 km.
Sunday - 2 hour run. First hour pushing Thing 1 & 2 in the double chariot. In order to convince Thing 1 to come I promised her we would find a bridge, forest and a highest hill (anyone else seen that episode of Dora 50,000 time or so???). Bridge and forest were no problem and luckily I was able to sell a modest sized overpass as the highest hill. Averaged 4:48 per km with them. Then I took off on my own for an hour (to be clear, I did drop them at home with their Papa... I didn't just suddenly run off abandoning them on the highest hill) and averaged 4:24. total 25.9 km in 2 hours.
4 weeks 'till race day!
Those are some solid mile and 400 paces! Looks like the plan is working well for you.
ReplyDeleteThat's a strong week! (I like the image of you ditching the stroller by the roadside and taking off, though). "The easy days have to be easy so that hard days can be hard." Yeah, gotta work on that one myself...
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