One weekly update:
2011-03-21 to 2011-03-27
| Sport | Total Distance | Total Time | Min Pace | Ave Pace | Max Pace | Pace Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bike | 85 | km | 2:50:00 | 30 | 30 | 30 | kph |
| Run | 85.08 | km | 7:22:25 | 5:34 | 5:12 | 4:27 | min per km |
| Swim | 7350 | m | 2:55:00 | 2:26 | 2:23 | 2:20 | min per 100 meters |
| Yoga | 0 | mi | 0:50:00 | na | na | na | no pace units |
| Total Time | One Day Off | ||||||
I’ll post another full update in a few weeks when the big push for marathon fitness is over. I’ve got some solid work to do this week including a 10km race simulation on Saturday that I hope to run right around 40-41 minutes, and that is backed up with a no-pressure-on-pace long run on Sunday. It’ll be my one kick at a long aerobic run with sore muscles during the buildup. I’ve done a lot of running like that in past, but have really made an effort in scheduling to not require that I do it very often this time around, this is the one situation where I am going to tackle it. It will probably be a relatively easy long run considering I am a lot stronger at this point in the season than I have been previously, I still want to do it though as it will have some training effect in adding some robustness to muscle durability. The alternative – trying to run a blazing 10kms the day after a long easy run doesn’t really achieve either of the training effects. The easy long run is going to be pretty superfluous as far as race specificity goes because I’d probably feel fresh the whole way, and the 10km race simulation will probably have me feeling a bit flat and not likely to boost capacity for dealing with lactate. The weekend after that is my toughest long run of the buildup, 20 miles with 10 of them at marathon effort, I’m hoping I can bring them in below 4:30 pace again, and if so I will declare myself to have a realistic hope of qualifying for Boston.
To compare with a week of my previous marathon build (March 2009) I’ll post some stats from a week that totally knocked me on my ass:
2009-03-09 to 2009-03-15
| Sport | Total Distance | Total Time | Min Pace | Ave Pace | Max Pace | Pace Units | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bike | 90 | km | 3:00:00 | 30 | 30 | 30 | kph |
| Fixie | 25.1 | km | 1:12:00 | 18 | 20.92 | 22.8 | kph |
| Run | 87.49 | km | 7:25:50 | 5:28 | 5:06 | 4:32 | min per km |
| Swim | 2700 | m | 1:30:00 | 3:20 | 3:20 | 3:20 | min per 100 meters |
| Yoga | 0 | mi | 1:00:00 | na | na | na | no pace units |
| Total Time | 14 hrs 7min | Two days off | |||||
Oddly enough, it looks just about the same! ~85kms in 7.5 hours accounting for about 55% of my weekly activity. If you look closely you’ll see that my fastest run pace this past week was barely faster than my fastest run pace that week, my average run pace is actually a bit slower than it was that week, and my slowest run pace was actually slower last week than it was in 2009. What these stats don’t show is that… my fastest run pace during that week in 2011 occurred during the 12.5km marathon effort interval during the second half of my long run. Also, that my slowest pace occurred on a recovery run instead of on my long run where I was hurting, and that the average pace for my long run in the 2011 week was actually considerably faster than my average pace for the week. It also doesn’t show that I backed up this week with a Monday night workout over 2.5 hours in duration of running to the pool, swimming for an hour twenty, and then running a round-about-way home with zero calorie consumption across the whole thing. In 2009 I backed up that week with three days off and a weekly mileage of 16 kms. The fitness is in how things are put together, not purely in the generic stats, but I have faith that it’s there.
Some other cool stuff from the long run this weekend:
