I gave the track & field meeting a miss tonight. My enthusiasm for the track has been on the wane since the bad 1500 metre race a month ago. Instead I rode the mountain bike down to Calwell and just did a warm-up and warm-down run plus some drills. I'm very keen to commence a new training program after the Six Foot Track.
Yesterday I decided to try one of the sessions from this program - aerobic repetitions at 10k race pace. I remembered that Jim often used the bike path next to the floodway for fast running. I didn't want slow numbers and this would be easier than running long repeats on the grass of Calwell. The plan was to do 3 x 2000 metres with an 800 metre jog recovery. I thought three would be a good number of hard efforts to get the feel of this session as I've rarely done repeats longer than 1000 metres. I set the Forerunner GPS to measure the distances.
For the first half, the session went quite well although try as I might, I couldn't get my 'current pace' faster than 4:30/km. The first mainly downhill 2km was completed in 9:12 - not bad I thought. I jogged slowly for 800 metres then took off again turning back near Monash after about 1400 metres. The second 2km took 9:11. After another even slower 800 jog I took off near the bridge for the last repeat. I was running slightly uphill, but worse than that, I was into a bloody headwind! The third 2km seemed to take forever, and it did - 10:00.
I jogged home thinking this had been a good reaquaintance with faster running. I'd managed to cover 6km at 4:44 per kilometre. Not quite 10k race pace but at least I'd made my legs move faster than they normally would on a Wednesday run. The plan is taking shape!
Yesterday I decided to try one of the sessions from this program - aerobic repetitions at 10k race pace. I remembered that Jim often used the bike path next to the floodway for fast running. I didn't want slow numbers and this would be easier than running long repeats on the grass of Calwell. The plan was to do 3 x 2000 metres with an 800 metre jog recovery. I thought three would be a good number of hard efforts to get the feel of this session as I've rarely done repeats longer than 1000 metres. I set the Forerunner GPS to measure the distances.
For the first half, the session went quite well although try as I might, I couldn't get my 'current pace' faster than 4:30/km. The first mainly downhill 2km was completed in 9:12 - not bad I thought. I jogged slowly for 800 metres then took off again turning back near Monash after about 1400 metres. The second 2km took 9:11. After another even slower 800 jog I took off near the bridge for the last repeat. I was running slightly uphill, but worse than that, I was into a bloody headwind! The third 2km seemed to take forever, and it did - 10:00.
I jogged home thinking this had been a good reaquaintance with faster running. I'd managed to cover 6km at 4:44 per kilometre. Not quite 10k race pace but at least I'd made my legs move faster than they normally would on a Wednesday run. The plan is taking shape!
13 comments:
Fantastic workout! It bodes well for the 6' - not long now!!
Ideal training Ewen to regain your speed for the upcoming cross country season.
Be very wary of the bikepaths alongside Canberra's storm water canals. They have vicious cambers which I feel greatly contributed to my frustrating lingering plantar fascitis.
Ewen, I don't know, you missed a brilliant meet on a cool night with lots of pbs, a great Meet Director, and a turkey 3000/5000 where the winner didn't have to run fast. What were you thinking?
Even if your run had been poor, you could have been the turkey?
Ewen, when you say "at 10km race pace" do you mean above/at/below PB pace ?
Well done! 2k reps are so hard, they seem to me to take forever so must be really tough when you aren't used to them.
2 Km repeats are hard work Ewen. Well done.
Next time maybe be a bit easier on yourself & do only 800m repeats?
Kathy
45 is a better number ;-)
Its true 2km repeats are hard but you obviously know the benefits that such long intervals bring.Good luck for 6' if i don't comment sooner!
Hey Ewen, you should be a coach....read my blog for saturday, 67 first lap, finished in a pb of 2:18.26
:-)
I decided to comment here rather than write a very brief post.
My next post (hopefully) will be on Sunday evening - a day after covering 45 (a better number) km on foot in less than 7 hours.
Everything is going well - the legs are starting to feel good. I'm looking forward to a very sociable, uneventful run!
A brief answer here as well to Gronk's question...
I mean 'at my current 10k race pace', which, I'm guessing, would be about 45 minutes.
Ewen - very best of luck for Saturday's Six Foot Track. I'm so looking forward to reading all about it. Hope the weather is kind and you have a ball!
Good luck for tomorrow - I look forward to reading your report...
Good luck Ewen - may the wind be at your back the whole way! Hope you have a wonderful race. I look forward to reading about it and seing you back out at Calwell training again (after sufficient recovery of course).
Kathy S
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