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Send in the Clowns - BAC 10K Challenge
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Monday: 9 miles easy
Taper brings mixed blessing, as while the body starts the recovery process, I'm not getting much by way of sleep, typically waking at 4am and ticking off the hours until it's bright enough to go for a run. Headed out to Bray on a beautiful morning where the incredibly beautiful views along the cliff path were offset by the all of the discarded chipper rubbish on the promenade, piss stains everywhere and the sad sight of the Gardai standing over a body at the end of the harbour.
In the afternoon, I visited the UCD Sports Institute for a body composition analysis (body-pod) , which is the first time I've done anything like this. It confirmed two things for me: The first is that my cheap-ass €20 weighing scales is actually pretty accurate(!), and the second is that the 153/154 pounds that I typically end up carrying into target races is about spot-on in terms of race weight, and realistically, I can't afford to lose too much more, without impacting health/performance. So sadly, further improvements are going to have to come from training, rather than weight loss.
Tuesday: 10 miles with 7 Miles @MP (1 min surge to LT every mile)
Back to the treadmill again. Didn't really want to hit the treadmill again, but with Saturday's very tough 3x5 miles @MP still very much in the legs, I felt a forgiving surface was the right call. The gym was an uncomfortable 21-22'C, but it wasn't a long session, so was manageable enough.
Wednesday: 6 recovery + 6 easy + pilates
Thursday: 7.5 miles including 6 miles steady + 5 easy
Last visit to the treadmill for 6 miles at steady pace. Magness plan called for '7/4 steady' and it's not clear whether you're supposed to do both runs at steady, or just the 4 miles, so I split the difference and ran 6 steady (6:15/mile), with some warm-up/cool-down and then 5 miles easy at lunch-time. There's a misconception that I run a lot on the treadmill and perhaps even have come to enjoy it, but the reality is quite different. I've been doing about 80-85 miles per week on the road, and 15-20 miles on the treadmill where a specific type of run was better suited to that environment. Every visit to the loathed contraption has been focused on the sole purpose of allowing me to do greater amounts of quality work with lower levels of impact. I can tolerate hard running (5 min mile - 6:20/mile), as the mind needs to be focused enough (with music/podcasts for distraction), but anything below that pace is a significant struggle. I've benefited significantly from Treadmill #1 over this marathon campaign, and I have a feeling I'll see it again soon, but for the time being, I'm glad to turn my back on it for a spell.
Friday: 8 miles easy
An amazing morning as I took the hilly route to Puck's Castle and enjoyed amazing views across Dublin Bay, before the rain settled in for the afternoon. I'm adjusting well to the single run days, and getting my run done before work is beginning to feel a little like a rest day and the body seems to be reacting in kind.
Saturday: 11 miles with 6 miles @MP + home pilates
Despite having done 3x5 miles @MP just a week ago and countless other marathon paced miles over the last 4 weeks, this run still gave me cause for worry. I didn't make it this far last year (and truth be told, wasn't entirely certain I would make it this far this time around), but remembered from two years ago that this one should feel comparatively easy. What if it doesn't? Well, it went just fine. First couple of miles were into a brisk wind, so was working a little harder than MP effort, and then topped it off with a hill climb, before turning away from the wind where the effort level dropped hugely, and I cruised back to the finishing spot, ending up a good chunk faster than MP because of over-extending myself into the wind over the first few miles. Last semi-tough session. Maintenance from here on in.
Sunday: 10 mile recovery run
Just a handy paced run, enjoying a bit of company for a change. The road to the marathon is long and largely empty!
Monday: 9 miles hilly + 4 miles w/surges
Another morning waiting for dawn's first light, a quick cup of coffee and out the door. I'm going to miss these early morning empty runs. I could lie to myself and say I'll keep them going, but I know when the beer kicks back in and the late nights resume, I'll be back to the old routines. But I'm enjoying these last few days, and I think that's important. It has been a long slog. Followed up with four miles in the afternoon with surges. I had to work hard to figure out a 4 mile loop. 4 Miles... Seems so... short...
Tuesday: 8 + 4 miles + home stretching/pilates
Another sleepless night, another early run. Felt groggy over the first few miles but hitting the park on the way back the legs fell into a groove (the tailwind helped), and glanced at the watch to see an average pace of 6:15 or so. Figured that while I was steady and it was feeling good, I might as well tick off tomorrow's planned training, which just meant picking up the pace to MP for the last 5-10 minutes. Slightly hilly route but again the wind compensated and it just felt good to be running fast. Kept the pace very easy for the second (and perhaps final) double.
Wednesday: 8 miles easy + pilates
Emer was headed out to Greystones for 8am, so jumped into the car with her and ran back, for a bit of a change of scenery.
So yeah.. Just four days left and like I said, really wasn't sure I'd make it this far. At some point this week, my focus changed from whether or not I'd make the start line, to what might actually happen during the race and as a result, a weight of stress and pressure has been lifted. What ever happens on race day, at least I'm getting the opportunity this time around. Committing 6-10 months of training for a single race and falling at the final hurdle has been a very tough pill to swallow. As I have to keep reminding myself, the goal was always just to put myself in a position where I could justify an attempt at my time goal and I feel like I've just about earned the right to give it a pop. I have the pace band that I picked up at the Berlin expo for inspiration, so just a few more days of waiting... Then beer... Glorious beer...0 -
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Cheers Joe. When's the inaugural Joe 2.0 trial run?Lad looks like lad you've had a pretty much ideal prep and in ideal condition for Rotterdam. You seemed to have done everything right including achieving brilliant race PB's along the way.
Yeah, this patch of training has definitely gone well. I was really worried about my back over the last 4-8 weeks, as it was getting tighter and tighter as the volume of quality went up, but the constant pilates/stretching did just enough to hold everything together and it's feeling a lot better now. Interestingly, my last day off was the 28th October and I haven't been near a physio or PT since September, so looks like the pilates is doing a good all round job of holding me together!
A couple of interesting sets of data:
Strava has added Fitness and freshness tracking for runners and while I take it with a pinch of salt, it seems to map pretty closely to what you'd expect in terms of a marathon training phase with taper. It depends on good HR data (and mine is often wrong for the first 1-2 miles), but it maps pretty closely to my other marathon/race trends. It's still suggesting that there's some fatigue, but hopefully the drop in miles over the next two days will bring this down, while keeping the fitness pretty close to where it is now.
Garmin Vo2max - I don't put a huge amount of faith in the absolute values, but the comparative trends are interesting. Right now, it's suggesting that my Vo2max is marginally higher than it was last Aug/Sept (in the build-up to Berlin), but slightly lower than it was in 2015, when I ran my last marathon in Frankfurt. I'm not sure if Vo2max like HR, has a declining trend (which unlike HRMax can be offset by training), but I've run many PBs over the intervening period, so I won't read too much into it. Would like to get a lab-based assessment at some point (purely out of curiosity), but I understand that some of the labs won't let you run to your capability once you hit 45 years of age, which I'd imagine defeats the purpose of doing such a test. Food for thought.0 -
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