easier week – Richard Rae

Frankfurt Half Marathon 2016 – PB + Goal Achieved!

Five weeks since my last race! Five weeks, that is a long time for me. I would normally have raced at the end of February, but we were away in Cagliari, so I have just been getting stuck into training for the last 5 weeks. 2 weeks ago I did my best long run ever, a 36km run with 2x5km just faster than goal marathon pace, some hills and a final average speed of 4:30/km. I was flying all that week, but then the following week I started to feel the fatigue. After a slow 30km run last weekend I was absolutely bushed, so took the week up to Frankfurt half marathon as a down week/ mini-taper to get ready for the race.

I only had 1 half marathon in my schedule before Rotterdam and there is only one goal for me in a half marathon, and that is to run sub1:20. For some reason that has always been more of a dream for me that a sub3 marathon, maybe because it was always close enough to be a realistic long term goal, but was always far enough away that I knew it would be hard work to ever manage it. Last year I surprised myself in Rheinzabern by running a 1:21:51 in a near perfect race for me. That was great, but it was still 112 seconds shy of a sub1:20! This year my best 10k was slightly short of being equivalent of a 1:20HM, so finally breaking through that barrier was not a given. Continue reading “Frankfurt Half Marathon 2016 – PB + Goal Achieved!”

End of week 27 – easier week

So I hadn't planned an easier week, but that's how it ended up, so I will just have to live with it!

Things started well on Monday with a 10.7km run at 4:48/km. Average HR was 138 which is great, my aerobic base seems to be good. On Tuesday I cycled to the pool in Nieder Olm, swam 2.7km before cycling into town to meet friends for a few beers. It totalled 25km cycling, again pretty decent.

I had Wednesday off work so wanted to do a long ride. There was a wasps nest in my window shutters, so an exterminator had to come around, so i had to wait until that was done. I also had arranged to meet Katja at 2pm and I was tired, so I lounged around and napped instead of riding! I finally got myself out to ride in the late afternoon, though only for 91km at 32km/h on my road bike. It was actually good fun, I really attacked the hills, setting some Strava PBs.

On Thursday I ran late with Katja. It was a pretty relaxed pace. I was in work until late and the weather was hot, so we ran at about 7pm for about an hour.
On Friday I went straight from work to the pool and swam 2.7km again. On Tuesday I had been fast, with my 200m repeats being at 3:25 or so. On Friday I was slow! Repeats were more like 3:50. I guess the water temp (26 vs 20) and clothing (trisuit vs loose shorts) played a part, but I didn't feel so good on Friday either, whereas I was flying on Tuesday!

I should have cycled on Friday evening, but didn't. That left me needing a big ride on Saturday to catch up. I woke up to heavy rain… It dried up by about 11am and I was good to go by 1pm, when an almighty flash storm hit, so I decided that this week could be my easier week instead of next week. So I did nothing on Saturday except nap and generally be lazy!

Sunday was Worms Tri day. I cycled 18km to the start then did the event, see the race report.

Running 26.2km (1204,8km YTD)
Cycling 154.1km (4415,3km YTD)
Swimming 6.2km (87.75km YTD)

End of week 14 (distant memories)

Right, here is what I remember, along with what strava/movescount say I did!
Monday I did my 7x1km intervals, I did the last 2 faster and the last 1.5km in one interval instead of 1km.
Tuesday Swimming 2km in Mombach, so 22km cycling there and back too. I seem to remember it being better than I had feared after a long lay off from swimming.
Wednesday: I did some 400m intervals but my calves were feeling dead tight after a few in the Kinvaras, so I went and did some general km repeats instead. Mainly pretty quick, like 3:45 or so pace. was 12.5km at the end at 4:26 pace, not sure the GPS is right with that though.

Thursday: I ran before work my 11.6km route. I noticed that my feet were hurting afterwards, day 1 of Plantar Fasciitis! I decided not to run my planned long run on Friday because of that. If it wasn't called Plantar Fasciitis, I wouldn't have been worried, but it is and I have heard lots of horror stories about it, so I was being cautious! Arne telling me in seminar that my running career is over but i just hadn't realised it yet was too comforting either for some reason!

I went to Hamburg for a weekend of drinking on Friday. I don't think bowling or pool count as exercise, though I did swim 2km and run a single 1km on the treadmill, just to do something and not hurt my feet. That was it for the weekend, not a big training weekend.

Running 35km (702.1km)
Cycling 0km (no chances 1083km YTD)
Swimming 4km (28.25km YTD)

Start of week 4

I think I did too much quality in week 3, so I plan to run 1 interval session this week, instead of 2. I should get 2 swims in, especially with coached training being some time during the week. I need to keep plugging away with cycling, I expect my form will come at about the time as the weather improves, then it’ll be all good.
Regarding my weight, I was 79kg yesterday, but somehow 77.9kg today. I think I might be a bit dehydrated, so maybe my weight will go up in the next week, but hopefully not 😉

I think I need to increase the speed of my 1km intervals now that my 10k time has changed a bit. I ran 3:51.5/km yesterday, that’s 15.55km/h. So I will set the treadmill to 15.6km/h for the 7x1km next time I do them.

I have just noticed that this coming week is week 4, I will generally try to do 3 weeks harder followed by one week easy, so that is another reason to only do 1 set of intervals this week, and to cycle more! I need to get to bed nice and early from the get go this week, last week Monday-Wednesday were pretty much write offs because I was so tired.