Tag Archive for ‘Training’ at Comrades Marathon Blog

Tag Archive for 'Training'

The Not So Frequent update

I’ve been very quiet, and with 11 days until Comrades, it’s time for me to update on what I’ve been up to. I though I’d compile a list of NSFAQ (Not so frequently asked questions) for the three of you that are interested:

Q: How’s the training gone since Two Oceans?

A: Well I took a week off training, basically just tried to recover. I slowly increased my mileage up to 120km a week, and now I’m tapering. I like graphs, so let me show you one:

April_May_KM

The above bar graph shows my weekly mileage divided up to into my different types of runs.

Q: What happened in the week 19 May to 25 May?

A: That was terrible. I got a stomach bug on the Monday, followed by a cold. Only managed to run three times, overdosing on Vitamin C seemed to work. I managed my long run fine though, which was 35km.

Q: Any highlights of the training so far?

A: A few. I ran a time trial 2 weeks after Two Oceans and got a PB of 17:25, which felt great. Another highlight was the Four Hills for Lindsay 56km training run. I completed this in 5 hours, and felt fantastic, a real confident booster.

Q: And lows?

A: Not that many, the combine long run and race on the 4th of May was quite tough. I ran the very hilly VWS 25km trail race followed by another 20km in howling wind and rain was quite testing. My 36km long run on the 13th of April was also tough, as I neglected to eat in the morning, and I started late.

Q: What is your total mileage for the year?

A: As of the 4th of June, I’m sitting on 1741km, so I think I’ve done just about enough. Would have liked closer to 1900, but rather be undertrained than overtrained as they say.

Q: What is your goal time?

A: 7:25, which would give me a silver. I’ll go into more detail in a future post.

Ok, so now that I’ve self indulged myself enough, please comment and tell me how your training is going, and how you are feeling about the big day. I would love to hear!

Two Oceans

This Saturday, I shall be attempting my first ultra marathon, the 56km Two Oceans Marathon. I’m feeling fairly confident, but good race results and solid training allows me to be confident.

Some of the thoughts I have floating around in my mind:

  1. The last 14km are notoriously hilly, and that’s after running a marathon. How am I going to handle that?
  2. Going out too fast is a worry, as the first 28km is nearly flat. However, since negative splits are nearly impossible, it’s important to go out fast. So what pace do I run at?
  3. With that said, what time do I aim for? The best time I could hope for would be a 4:10 (4:27 min/km), so realistically I’m hoping to get under 4:20 (4:39 min/km). With a fairly hard second half, and it being my first ultra, predicting is hard.
  4. Wind. The infamous south-easter is well known in running circles for make life difficult when running down Chapmans peak.
  5. 56km!

As far as pacing is concerned, I got emailed this wonderful excel file* which gives you splits to aim for and is based on profile on the course. To achieve a 4:20, here are my target splits:

Distance Time (Split) Pace (min /km)
10km 45:36 4:34
21km 1:34:56 4:31
42km 3:12:22 (1:37:26) 4:35
56km 4:20:00 (1:07:38) 4:39

 

To prove that negative splits are difficult on this course, here’s a graph of my goal pace per kilometre (click for a larger version):

OceansGoalPace

That would make a first half time of 2:06:30, and then a second half 7 minutes slower of 2:13:30.

Ok, so those are some of my thoughts, with it only being 4 days away, I’m starting to get nervous, and when I get nervous, I start searching for numbers to calm me, is that clear here?

*Attie Anderson developed the sheet based on splits run by Elizabeth McCaul and Garry Wilford

Progress

0401_0825

Building the mileage, slowly.

So I’ve finally nailed down my training program for next few weeks. Without a program, I’m likely to run too fast, and cause myself harm, which wouldn’t be too clever.

Here’s the program starting next Monday, 30 July 2007:

Week Mon Tues Wed Thurs Sat Total
Hrs / km
30 July 20 Min Very Easy 33 Min Easy 38 Min Easy 20 Min Very Easy 50 Min Easy 2:41 / 31km
6 Aug 20 Min Very Easy 36 Min Easy 40 Min Easy 20 Min Very Easy 55 Min Easy 2:51 / 33km
13 Aug 20 Min Very Easy 30 Min Easy 35 Min Easy 20 Min Very Easy 60 Min Easy 2:36 / 30km
20Aug 20 Min Very Easy 36 Min Easy 40 Min Easy 20 Min Very Easy 65 Min Easy 2:56 / 34km
27 Aug 20 Min Very Easy 40 Min Easy 40 Min Easy 20 Min Very Easy 65 Min Easy 2:56 / 34km

 

Some notes regarding the program:

  1. Fridays and Sundays are my rest days, I might go cycling or some other form of cross training. (Maybe I’ll try and swim)
  2. Mondays and Thursdays are to be run at around 5:30 min/km, on the treadmill. With light gym workout after.
  3. Runs labeled “easy” can be run around 4:50 min/km, but not much faster.

So that’s it, please follow my progress on my RunningAhead profile.

Fresh Air

So this morning I decided to take a quick jog, outside. It was cold, windy,  but nothing was going to stop me. This was the first time I ventured off a treadmill since the operation.

The ankle felt fine, a little “creaky” but once it warmed up, it felt fine. I can feel I ran on it this morning, but nothing more than if I ran on the treadmill. This is normal, I’m told, so I don’t need to worry.

You can see the route here, but here are the details of my first proper run on the road:

29:30 min, 6.3km at a pace of 4:41 min/km. Avg HR (a very high) 159.