....................when I am driving home from Tuesday's track session with my legs pleasantly knackered and knowing that it's all over for another week. Don't get me wrong I love the track - there's nothing like hard work to give you a feeling of achievement (although I prefer the feeling to the hard work bit).
This evening I was repeating the 1000's I did last week. I had thought briefly of increasing the number from 6 to 7 but decided to see how the first rep would go and if I was closer to 3:45 (as opposed to last weeks 3:50+) I would sacrifice number for speed.
The first 1000 came in at 3:42 - "A bit fast - I hope I don't blow the remaining 1000s but if I can maintain this pace I won't do more than 6 reps".
The next 2 were marginally slower in 3:43 & 3:44 as I began to feel the effort. With one eye on tomorrow's long run and not wanting to sacrifice speed for distance I decided to cap the intervals at 5 and brought in the remaining 2 in 3:44 & 3:43, which I was happy with as I had kept below 3:45 which was the target pace for my 800's (3:00) a few weeks ago. 5 km is enough speedwork for me at this stage of my Marathon buildup - I remember this time last year I peaked at the UCC 10k (on next Sunday) before picking up an injury a few weeks later.
With an view to keeping the easy days "easy" yesterdays run was at a very comfortable 8:29 pace with an average HR of 119 - no point in pushing pace for the sake of it. I'll try to stick to this "easy" running for 2 days a week, 2 reserved for speedwork, 2 for endurance and the remaining day for rest/x training.
Best of Luck to Richard running in Rotterdam this weekend - All things going well I predict a PB by 6 minutes (No pressure Richard - enjoy).
Also best of Luck to Peter in the Paris Marathon - Peter, whom I know through work, called me out of the blue last week to meet and get some advice on tactics for running a marathon. "Is this a once off or will you do the distance again" I asked him when we met up. "oh I'll keep going" he said "I used to run when I was young. I'm a 4:01 1500m man. Just short of scholarship to the US material". I sat there in shock for a second "Christ and this guy is asking ME for advice" I thought. Then again a marathon requires different skills I suppose.
Mon 30th March
a.m. 11.09 miles in 01:33:54 (08:29 pace @ 119 HR)
p.m. 2.5 miles in 19:50 (07:56 pace) Treadmill
Tue 31st March
6.42 miles in 50:24 (07:51 pace @ 136 HR) with 5 x 1000m in 3:42/43/44/44/43.
March 2009 (Run 241.3 miles, Bike 138.1 miles, Swim 9,000m)
