Marathon Training: Week 1-3

I blog about my training runs. It’s my way of putting a run behind me. I write about it to process how I
ran it, what I felt, what I learned, what hurts, what made me laugh, what I was thinking and even what I saw during the run. I suppose this is what Bananarunning is all about.

I haven’t blogged about my latest training runs. I have kept the last 7 runs to myself because I was afraid to examine the runs and find out that I’ve been falling short of my goals. Time to face the last 7 runs …

Aug 20: 5K Easy. This was supposed to be a speed workout day but since I just completed an almost Half Marathon in Marikina, I decided to run easy. The pace was easy but getting started was hard. It was pouring like crazy when I got to BHS. I had to wait it out and finally the rain stopped long enough for me to complete my 5ks. After I completed the run, I was confident that my legs have recovered enough from the race last Sunday and that I could complete the 2 other runs for the week.

Aug 22: 3Easy – 3Tempo @ 5:55 – 3Easy. I was confident that I could hit. I like tempo runs because I have noticed the improvement in my race pace ever since I incorporated them in my training runs. Textbook
definition is … Tempo run improves endurance by raising a runner’s lactate threshold. It basically teaches our body to run faster before reaching fatigue.

I planned an out and back route from BHS to end the of Lawton Ave. I periodically checked my pace while doing the tempo so I knew I was hitting the pace. I finished the run strong, happy with my accomplishment for the day and eager to review my pace per km. Ngek! I forgot to activate the Polar’s autolap. I knew I was hitting the pace so I was okay with it.

Aug 23: 16 Long @ 6:36. Tech glitch again, forgot to change my footpod battery so I had to mentally calculate my pace again and again. My target pace was 6:36 min/km. Math math math I should be at Km6 taho pit stop in 39minutes. Yey!  I met that one. I completed the 16Ks with an average pace of 6:51min/km. Off pace but we had 2 full stop breaks. After this run, I’ve decided to cut down on fullstop breaks. I will be replacing Km6 taho break with GU. This is going to be sad change to make. *sniff sniff* I really do enjoy our pitstops, this is where we share how we struggled over the kms, what oddities in the route, drink our Gatorade to wait for the rest of the group and then run back together for breakfast. After the training, life can go back to the normal easy breezy long runs.

Aug 26: Speed workout 4x800m. My first speed workout! I opted not to do the speed work during week1 of the training to give the legs a bit of a rest after the 19K Marikina run. I was excited to do this speed work. This workout has always been a big hit or miss for me. I’m working on consistency. I was so excited about it; I dreamt that I was doing speed workout. When my alarm went off, my first thought was oh no can’t wake up yet, I still need to do one more repeat.

Today’s workout was 4x800m @ 5:35 about 4min25sec to complete each repeat. I checked with Eric on how he does rest intervals and he said that if you are aiming for endurance, you have to jog your interval. And so Mesh and I jogged … slowly. We ran this at one of the long sides of BHS. Here are my 800m repeats:  4:05, 4:09, 4:35, 4:10. I went out too hard on the first one and was afraid that this will make me bonk out and I didn’t.

I was feeling good about this workout and somehow I had a feeling it felt too easy. I looked at my program again and *aha! then slap forehead*  rest interval was 2 minutes not 800m slow jog.

Aug 28: 19K Long. I registered to join the Nike Human Race 10K so I moved my long run and planned to make Sunday’s race my tempo run for the week.

How was the run? It was pleasant and I ran MKH for practice but I was off
pace. I completed 19K in 2:23:16 with average pace of 7:32 min/km. Target
pace was 7:08. But hey, I’m a work in progress.

Running has taught me to be a very patient with myself. The pic on the
left is a screen grab of my celfone. This is a note I made last 4 Sep 2006.
This is one of my first running milestones. Walk 2 min and run 4 mins, 5
times for a total of 20mins running time. Slow and steady.

 

Aug 31: 8K Tempo. I completed the most hilly race course in 1:04:46, average pace of 6:10.

Sep 2: Speed 1200m, 1000m, 800m, 600m, 400m and 200m with 200m RI. Hitting the pace during the first 2 repeats was easy enough and recovering was equally easy.  The agony started while I was doing the 800s. I was losing form … what ever form I was working on and slowing down. I was getting tired and breathing quite heavily. The program said that this workout was designed to improve running economy and speed. I had to refocus internally, quiet my mind and focus on how I was running. I consciously activated my core, relaxed my hips to open my stride and watched how my feet were landing. I kept on repeating to myself the chi running technique… “Your lean is your gas pedal.” I hit the paces but I had to adjust the recovery intervals.

7 training runs processed. The runs have been fun. I was not able to hit all the paces but I have learned from each run. I will use this to tinker and tweak my future runs. I am pleased conclude that after 7 runs, I am enjoying the training so far. This is probably one of my key marathon goals … to have fun all the way to the finish line.

Update: 5Sept 1.5 Easy 8K Tempo @ 6:13 1.5K Easy I just completed my a 11K run. Supposed to be a tempo … inhale exhale … there are no bad runs, just runs you will learn from. What did I learn today? hahaha If you are starting out with tempo away from the BHS loop … stay away from McKinley. Legs got wasted at McKinley, very irritating! I recovered enough to just settle at 6:45 pace. Run and learn … right?