Training log - Week ending 2/05/12

This week was 60.5 miles of “real running” and 17 “miles” pool running, plus 2000 yards of swimming breathing drills -- training log is here.

I was pretty happy with this week overall. The highlight was on Friday, when I broke 20 minutes in a 5K tempo – since I run my workouts without the time showing on my Garmin, and just focus on effort, I can honestly say that this was a tempo effort, and not an attempt to chase a specific time.

Instead of a tempo and a long run, I did two tempos this week – in addition to the shorter 5K tempo on Friday, I did a longer one of “3 miles, 2 miles, 1 mile” (with mile recoveries) on Sunday. We usually do this workout on the track (albeit with shorter recoveries, which makes the workout harder), so I thought that we were shooting for the same effort during the on miles here, and did so.

Of course, I then found out that I apparently ran this too fast, and that we were supposed to be running the on parts at marathon pace. Oops. (there was an alternate version of the workout for marathoners, which was 4, 3, 2, 1 at marathon pace – I thought that while they were doing marathon pace, we were doing tempo pace).

Oh well. Of course, even with apparently running this workout way too hard, I still found it less taxing than either of this week’s track workouts. Shows where my strengths and weaknesses are, I guess.

In other news, I broke down and purchased compression socks in black to replace the darn pink ones. My dignity can slowly start to heal.

Dailies

Monday: In the morning, 60 minutes of poolrunning for “6 miles” followed by 1000 yards of swimming breathing drills, and then upper body and core strength work, plus injury prevention exercises. Foam-rolling at night.

Tuesday: In the morning, 12 miles including a track workout of 8x800m (400m jog). Splits were 3:06, 2:58, 2:58, 2:54, 2:54, 2:54, 2:53, 2:49. Followed with injury prevention work and then recovery pool-running for 25 minutes (“2.5 miles”). Floor barre class at night.

Wednesday: In the morning, 9.5 miles easy (8:08 pace), and then yoga. Later, another 4.5 miles that certainly felt easy but somehow came out to 7:37 pace. No idea what happened there – I’m thinking some weird Garmin error where it tracked distance accurately, but screwed up time (my Garmin’s been having all sorts of other corruption issues, so this isn’t a totally crazy idea).

Thursday: In the morning, upper body and core strength work, plus injury prevention exercises, followed by 1000 yards of swimming breathing drills, and then 45 minutes of poolrunning for “4.5 miles.” Foam-rolling at night.

Friday: In the morning, 11.5 miles including a 5K tempo workout in 19:58 (6:26 pace; splits of 6:39, 6:20, 6:17, 0:42). Followed by injury prevention work and then recovery pool-running for 10 minutes (“1 mile”). Pilates and foam rolling at night.

Saturday: In the morning, 9.5 miles easy (8:08 pace). Weights, core strengthwork, injury prevention exercises, and foam rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday: 13 miles on a bike trail, including a tempo workout of “3 miles, 2 miles, 1 mile” with 1 mile recovery between each rep. Since we were on a trail without reliable markers, and I like to keep my Garmin to clock time, I just ran the workout by clock time – meaning I split this as: hard (8:24 - 8:44 am), easy (8:44 - 8:52 am), hard (8:52 - 9:05 am), easy (9:05 - 9:12 am), and then hard (9:12 - 9:18 am). When I hit the right clock time, I shifted screens to check Garmin distance, and then ran to a close landmark.

This worked pretty well – split paces ended up being 6:37 for the ~3 miles, 6:39 for the ~2 miles, 6:35 for the final mile (recoveries at 7:47 and 8:14). Given the slight hills of the route, I’d call this even effort. Average pace for the run overall was 7:30.

Followed with injury prevention work at gym, and then 30 minutes of easy pool-running for “3 miles”. Foam rolling and hot yoga on the schedule for tonight.