Sunday, November 29, 2009

Preparing to succeed

"If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail". So says the famous proverb and as usual a metaphor that can equally be applied to running as to life itself. One of the many reasons I love this sport as much as I do is that it takes no prisoners. What you put in you get out, if you don't put it in you get nothing out, there's no bluff involved.

And so here I am 2 weeks out from Thunder Road and I think I'm as prepared as I could be considering all the crap I've gone through this year. Injury after injury made the end of 2009 and the first three quarters of 2010 a stop/start affair but since my broken foot healed I seem to have caught a break and put some solid weeks in. As a result, a season that looked to be destined for the trash can may unexpectedly end up with at least some salvation in the form of a marathon pr.

since my latest comeback mileage has been 11,22,36,44,51,56,58,69,72,59,76,76,75,60.

It was after the 69 mile week that I started to sniff Thunder Road calling, so it was straight on the line to coach Budic to draw me up a program to give me a shot at a PR come December. Six weeks later and I think I've got a shot. over that time I've been able to follow Tim's plan to a T. I screwed up one workout but other than that as usual Tim has had the uncanny knack of sensing what type of workout I need to get me fit and the paces I need to run the workout at to get the best out of it for me. No shortcuts, just hard, realistic work.

The first week of my 'taper' went well, with a good showing at the Turkey Trot on Thursday and a confidence boosting last long run today.

Workout 1- Turkey Trot 8k race (6th in 26:48, 1st in 35-39 age group

Splits

5:13
5:08
5:32
5:32
5:13

Goal was to try and hold around 5:20 pace and go sub 27, feel pretty strong and be competitive. All boxes checked. Held back a little on the first mile as I knew everyone else would go off faster than the pace I was targetting. Second mile was downhill and I picked off a couple of guys. The rest of the race I was on my own unable to get anywhere close to the group in front of me but conscious of Aaron gunning for me from behind. Miles 3 and 4 just tried to hold it together and was pleased to finish the last mile in 5:13. This was good training stimulus for the marathon too so all in all a good day.

Long run (18.8 miles with last 8 at MP)

Last big workout before T Road. Met up with Billy at the Y. we ran 5 miles of the course route before heading back to the Y to change into flats and suck down a gu. Rejoined the course to run the back half. After 5 more miles we launched straight into the last 8 of the course.

At that point we had covered 10 miles at 6:40 pace so we weren't hanging around as it was. The last 8 were meant to be at marathon pace but the first mile was downhill and I got a bit excited and ran 5:52. So now the tone was set for the rest of the run. Hit miles 2 to 8 in

5:49
5:50
5:51
5:45
5:45
5:48
5:53

Total for the 8 miles was 46:33 (5:49 average).

Am pumped right now. This was comfortably hard, I'm just hoping I didn't take it over the edge. I ran more miles than scheduled this week so next week I need to make sure I stick to the plan. No run tomorrow, easy 'group runs' planned Tuesday and Wednesday, only workout of the week on Thursday and 14 on Saturday

1 comment:

  1. wow paul. your mileage plan is exactly how i do it too! build up to almost your peak mileage, then do one week at lower, then three weeks at your peak mileage! I like what you've done and excited to see what u do at tr!

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