Speed Work

I have started to incorporate speedwork into my trianing, two sessions a week with 48-60 hours rest between. For one of the sessions I am working on speed and the other on tempo and endurance. One of the sessions is shorter reps of 100,200,300 or 400m with 60 seconds rest, and the other is starting at 1000m intervals. These workouts are run at my current vdot level (47). I have the intention of incresing the amount of intervals/distance over time.

31/07/07 I did the following: 10 min warm up, 6x200m 40 sec, 3 mile fat run hilly, 6x100m 20 sec - finished feeling tired but not all out. Enjoyable but hard.

Long Run Home

There is nothing better than letting all your weekly built up stresses out on a run, especially when I decided to run away from work to home yesterday. I took my stuff with me to work and then headed off home down the long and winding Chorley New Road. It is a bit mind numbing as there is nothing much to look at so it hard to keep concentration levels up. What was supposed to be a long run turned into quite a good 15km run, my PB, and I didn't push half as hard as when I went for it last time.

I am still pushing for the last 3 pounds to reach my Weight Watchers Goal, so foolishly went home and had a bowl of cereal for my tea. I ended my night with my first go at an hour of Yoga and felt it the next day.

Mile PB

I went to the Leisure Centre this morning with the intention of swimming a good few lengths before work. This wasn’t easy as there were too many people in the pool, so I decided to go to the gym for a while. I started with a warm up of 7:35 on the treadmill, then had a minute rest, and then went on it again with the aim of getting a PB for the mile: flat out for 5:30 on 16km/h, and then 30 seconds on 17. This gave me a PB of 5:58. I am happy with this, though I am sure I can add a few more seconds to this time for the road.

Easy not always Easy

I know that in order to get the most out of my running I need to mix up the types of running: easy runs, tempo, fartlek, speed work etc but when it comes to going out easy I just can't do it.
Again tonight, I went out on an apparent easy run which ended just over a minute slower than my PB 5k time. Admittedly I was pushing it and kept consciously thinking, slow down, but I couldn't. It is difficult for me to go at a slower pace, as I feel like it is just too slow. What are your thoughts on easy running?
What has worked for me in the past is going out with a less experienced runner and then I find it easier to go at his desired easy pace.

Stretching

Realising the importance of stretching pre and post exercise, I now ensure I do it fully. I had a bad ITB injury near the beginning of the year, and I was off for quite a while. It didn't do much for my state of mind, left me feeling anxious and angry. I visited the physio a few times and got back on track. I am thinking of taking up Pilates, or Yoga to improve flexibility and core strength. I now also run with Orthotics in and ensure that I regularly change my trainers. I have also started to mix up the surfaces I run on.

Weigh In

I am really trying hard now to lose the last bit of weight that I want to shed. I am weighing in at about 13st10 at the moment, and I want to get down to 12st7 for the moment. I have read up and heard that a loss of 3lbs will improve my VDOT by one notch, which will potentially really zip up my race times.

Difficult all the same because I am maintaing my mileage, and doing more intense workouts, yet cutting back drastically on the calories.

I have started to eat smaller meals more often during the day, trying to get 5-6 meals in a day. Started eating nuts too! Hopefully my cutting back on the calories will not make my training too hard, and zap my energy levels, if this happens I will raise them again. All about trial and error at the moment.

Hard Track Session

I have started reading up on speed work, threshold and vo2 max training, and am keen to incorporate 2 speed sessions in my weekly training.I went to the track as I always do last night, and did the training that the instructor laid out.
Here is what we did:
4 x 600 4 x 400 4 x 300
All where done with a one minute rest between. I did these with maximum effort really (effort which I could sustain over the distance and Intervals). My pace for all these on average was:
600s – 6min/mile400s – 5:40min/mile300s – 5:20min/mile
Hard Work but exhilerating. I am getting faster, as I am catching people now that where well ahead of me when I started. Todays weigh in 194lbs