Longish Run Saturday...

Saturday is typically long run day, but with just eight days to go before the marathon, today was a long but not very long run day.  It was planned to be two hours, and I am very pleased to realise that two hours no longer counts as a very long run!!  Long, yes, but not very long!!  It was the same plan as last week as far as expected power was concerned, but just with some time taken off.  But because of this being an hour less than last week, I figured I could try and go a little faster.  I was way off the power targets last week, and I still didn't hit them all today, but I was closer!!  If I ignore the easy running at the start and end, this run was 85m at a planned power of  236-245w and 20m at a planned power of 262-268w.  Clearly the first bit is a much easier power to maintain, but for quite a long time.  But the second bit is the phase where I get nowhere near the planned power!  262-268w is very hard and a lot of power for me!!  Last week that section was 40m and I managed an average power of 240w.  Well below the plan, but decent.  Today was only 20m, so I upped my pace/power and managed an average of 255w.  Still below the 262w minimum in the plan, but much closer!!  Very happy to have done that!!  And in the 85m section, I averaged 237w, which is towards the lower end but within the plan!!  Excellent!!  In all, I did a half marathon at a decent pace!  It ended up being 22.37km at 5:22m/km, so faster than last week and no struggles having a shower and walking home from the gym!!  Two hours is getting to be manageable!!  Can't imagine running for another two hours tbh, but I feel I have given the training a proper amount of effort!  And the point of this marathon is just to get round the course - no time goal - so all good 😁.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Manchester Half Marathon!!

Today was the day!  The half marathon that I had been training for, for the last few months!  The event is just superb!!  An easy tram to get close to the start,  And then a flat course with loads of support the whole way round!!  Just fabulous!!  I was wearing my Vegan Runners t-shirt and got just heaps of support personally the whole way!!  Loved the whole event, and the Manchester Evening News (a newspaper) even has a picture of me running!!  Picture number 20 out of 45, so not exactly famous, but funny!! My idea before the race was that I should be somewhere between 1:50:00 and 1:55:00.  Not exactly quick, but decent enough!  However I didn't mind if it was over 2 hours - the main goal was simply to finish!!  But on the day, with the good weather, and good training and feeling fine, I thought I should be under 1:50:00 - maybe even close to 1:45:00.  It wasn't to be - my official time was 1:52:34 which is bang on what I ex...
Read more

Parkrun PB: 22:14

My parkrun PB has been 22:26 since the 3rd of June 2023!!  I clearly haven't exactly been tearing it up on parkruns over the last 15 months!!  And I haven't written anything for this blog in the last four months or so, but nothing unusual has happened in my running world in that time.  But last year I said I would blog every time I managed to get a new PB, and, finally, today is the day!  The improvement was only 12s but it's still an improvement, so I am very pleased.  Also, in January I moved to Manchester, and that means all my parkruns this year have been in Manchester.  Today the location of my overall PB moved from Penrith to Manchester - end of an era😁.  I have been getting close to a PB recently, and today the weather was chilly but nice, so it was a good day to attempt a PB.  I usually do Alexandra Parkrun in Manchester and today was no exception!  I was 87th today, and being in the top 100 at Alexandra is unusual for me!!  It...
Read more

Long Run Post-Operation

It's 12 days before the Manchester marathon!!  Obviously due to the head operation at the end of February, my running in March has been kinda limited!!  And my running for the second half of February was pretty much non-existent too!!  Not great training for the marathon, but if I am going to give it a go, what do I need to do?  Clearly the aim now is not to worry about pace, but just try and get round it, ideally without stopping!  Even breaking four hours is not a goal - that's too quick for me in my current state.  But maybe 6m/km is achievable for a marathon.  That would equate to about 4:13h which is, if anything, faster than I should be aiming at!!  The not stopping is bizarrely important to me, because I have a possibly daft feeling that the knee/calf problems I have had in long runs only happen after I stop.  If I keep going, even very slowly, the pain won't start until I stop, which is hopefully after the finish!  So I am lookin...
Read more