Wednesday 11 January 2012

Back to Basics

After scaling my highest peak last September/October and descending to base camp last month I am ready to set off again to scale some new heights. The batteries have certainly been recharged - I have added over 4kg to my fuel stores (all good fat) so I am ready to burn - my motto (excuse) being "train heavy and race light".
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The first peak I have targeted is the 39.3 miles of Connemara on April 1st - by peak I mean PB, which is anything better than 5:24:30, although if I am to do it justice a sub 5:15 is called for. As for chasing (pacing) Thomas to a Sub 5:00 well.........it is fools day after all.

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Most, if not all, of my training for Connemara will be in the aerobic zone - certainly no anaerobic intervals at the track. However unlike last year I will target long tempo runs - obviously not at typical 10k tempo pace but scaled back towards marathon pace.
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Now that I know where i'm headed it is time to find where I am. With that in mind my track session last night was a repeat of the 5 mile evaluation runs I did last year to gauge my aerobic fitness. Then, over the period from January 27th to March 29th, my aerobic system improved so that I could run the 5 miles @ 140 HR nearly 3 minutes faster (37:18 down to 34:24) - or to put another way I could cover 1,000m in 600 heartbeats in March compared to 652 in January. Well last night proved that I am back where I was this time last year, taking 650 heartbeats to cover each km, although the spread of paces from mile 1 to 5 (8 seconds) was a bit more encouraging than this time last year (18 seconds).
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Onwards and upwards, the dizzying heights await.
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2 comments:

  1. I like that motto. I should try and stack on some kgs before my next build-up :)

    At least you're only back to square one and not behind it! I'm in the 710 to 730 HB/km range. Would love to get into the 600s. Harder training is called for I suspect.

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  2. At first I thought he had stored four kegs.

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