Tuesday - Magic Mile
This was supposed to happen on Monday but since Monday was a public holiday with sideways rain, and we were helping my MIL settle into her newly built house, I rescheduled it to Tuesday. I definitely appreciate the flexibility of the Garmin coach program.
Anyway, this workout consisted of the usual cadence drills, acceleration-glider drills, followed by a one-mile run at a fast-ish pace, or as Jeff says more succinctly in the instructional video, slightly faster than you'd run on a good day.
I thought I did ok with this, it was a quick half-hour workout, but at the end my watch told me that my training was "unproductive"! The notes say that although my training load is good, my fitness is decreasing (!!), so I may need more rest or better nutrition.
I decided to see what it says after Wednesday's long run, and if still unproductive I will skip, reduce, or reschedule Friday's goal pace repeats. Might also be time for a steak dinner, as I don't eat a lot of meat and my iron levels are often low.
3.35km avg pace 7:51/km
Wednesday - Run Walk Run 8km
The idea of this workout is to take many short walk breaks throughout the run. The frequency of the walk breaks is dependent on your time goal, which for my half-marathon is 2 hours 40 minutes. Based on that, I should be aiming to run about a 12 minute mile. Based on that, Coach Jeff says I should be running 60 seconds then walking 30 seconds for the whole run.
BUGGER THAT. I can't think of a more annoying way to run. Yes, I probably should have given it a go because I can see how it would enable me to practise faster running speeds, and I promise I will do it properly in a future workout. But today I just set out at my happy pace (around 7:30/km) and ran the 8km with a few short walk breaks.
This confirmed for me that I must bring water and something sugary on these longer runs. Because I'm "only" doing 8km I tend to think I don't need anything, but at my pace 8km is over an hour's running and by the 45 minute mark I felt very depleted. I can almost feel the moment my body runs out of fuel and my legs become lead. My brain tries to tell me I'm running faster because it feels like more effort, but my watch tells me that I'm actually slowing down. By the end of today's run I even felt a little woozy. Not good.
Because of this I wasn't surprised to see that my training status is still "unproductive". I'm going to change my run day breakfast. I have been having cereal or a hot cross bun, but I'll be switching to porridge or toast with peanut butter and see if that helps.
8.7km avg pace 7:31/km
Friday - Goal Pace Repeats
I decided to give these a miss and start fresh next week. Having done this workout last week I know it's another hour at least and I thought it might be sensible to just give my body a rest.
I've since done some reading online about this "unproductive" training status and will probably not put too much stock in it. I did feel tired at the end of Wednesday's run, my mileage has increased sharply these past two weeks, and I knew I probably wasn't fuelling effectively.
However, I do feel generally well and not exhausted (except at the end of a run) so I'll be continuing the plan, albeit cautiously. I see next week I'm supposed to do a 15km run which I will probably cut short to about 10km. Now that my half marathon isn't until July I don't have to rush myself, and I want to keep enjoying my running and I certainly don't want to get injured from pushing too hard too soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment