So after a few people getting on to me about trying to do too much too soon I eased of a little bit and then had some stuff on like Emma's graduation and work Xmas party and also playing a bit of golf on the weekend for a change. Below is a summary of the training for the past couple of weeks.
18th - 24th November
The running sequence continued for another 4 days this week doing 2 short (3 mile) recovery runs before my training with Tony. These were really slow paced but beneficial. I also did just over 4.5 miles on the Thursday night around the college with the club. The session on Tuesday night was 4x6 mins @ 10K pace w/3 mins recovery. If I remember it was very windy so we had the wind behind on one straight and straight into on the other so it took plenty of effort. The numbers were down a bit as Gary was away but I did these with Rosemary and the paces were (7:25, 7:19, 7:19, 7:21). With warm up and cool down just over 6 miles was covered in total.
Rounded off the weeks training with another Gym session on Friday.
25th - 1st December
Again this week I had my 3 sessions with Tony but Fridays was moved forward to Thursday as I had my work party. I can definitely see that I'm making some progress with these. The intensity is going up steadily but I'm better able to handle most exercises now and not taking as long to recover afterwards.
Not much happening in the way of running with just one short recovery run and the Tuesday night speed session.
The session was 4 sets of 4 mins @ 5K pace, 60 secs recovery, 1 min @ mile pace, 2 mins recovery. This was a toughie adapting to the different paces and not really knowing what mile pace should be. The paces for the 4 min segments were (6:55, 6:47, 6:37, 6:27) and for the 1 min segments were (6:16, 6:21, 6:13, 5:38).
The paces seemed to be improving as we went on which I guess is a good sign but with not much mileage in the legs recently the legs are also probably a bit fresher than they were.
Tuesday 3rd December
Another Tuesday another speed session greeted us on the wind tunnel in Stamullen. When Gary was explaining the session he told us there was 12 mins @ half marathon pace which didn't sound too bad but after a pause he went on with 8 mins @ 10K pace, getting worse and then to rightly finish us off 4 x 2 mins @ 5K pace. There was 3 mins recovery after the 12 & 8 mins and 90 secs between the 2 mins.
I knew if we went off too fast this was going to be a disaster so held the pace steady for the first few laps. I was running with Susan chatting away for the first few laps but as we had to work a bit harder into the wind it stopped soon enough. Gary was calling out the splits trying to get everyone to work to even splits. Finished off the 12 minutes @ 7:22 pace.
After recovery and being told we should be aiming to run the laps 5-10 seconds quicker we set off for the 8 minute portion. Putting in a bit more effort where the wind was behind us and trying to stay controlled into the wind. Wasn't really watching the pace but the splits were quicker as required. Turned out the 8 mins were done @ 6:47 pace which is definitely not my 10K pace.
I was worried then about the last portion and blowing up but again we were encouraged to up the intensity again from the previous 8 mins. Lucky enough I was feeling strong and was able to pick up the pace for each one as it passed. They were completed at (6:22, 5:58, 5:54, 5:36). Was pretty wrecked after the last one but that was pretty much flat to the boards in terms of effort.
Another good session under the belt in terms of speedwork.
Summary: Have a race on Saturday morning over 5K in the Phoenix Park. Not going in with any expectations as this time of year you never really know what the conditions will be like. Going to run it with no watch for a change i.e I won't look at the watch during the race just to see how that goes.
Need to find a way to start upping the miles again as well but I think between myself and Emma there is something on every weekend day/night between now and Xmas. I think there will have to be a few early morning runs thrown in somewhere.
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