I did slightly better than last Monday as I managed to sneak in 7.5km before heading in to work. The plan was for a 10 but I did what I could without adding more stress to the start of the week.
As mentioned in my previous update, I’m not quite ready for speed-specific workouts yet. So this Tuesday and the next, I’ll be running the day’s planned distance as a single easy-moderate long run. Pretty chuffed with the 16.7km logged.
Wednesday’s off-running day was whole-heartedly embraced. I focused the core workout on the hips and trunk, adding weights for the extra burn.
The second long run for the week was Thursday, a 15km. I was pleased with the 5:53/km average which was the first time I dipped under 6 minutes for these longer runs despite not setting out to do so. I’m still running by feel and taking these easy and longer days very easily - no pace objectives, just get the distance in.
It was nice to just have a short one on Friday which was just a 6km. Finished the morning outing with a 4 x 10 secs strides and a 600m cool down jog.
Quality sleep eluded me and I found myself awake at 3:30am with work on my mind. Highly unusual but these are unusual and personally unprecedented times going through this transition. There’s always a tension juggling work and running. It has so far been more or less a even force exerted on both ends of the metaphorical rope and it’ll continue to be so in the coming months. So it was of good fortune that I had Cheong along for Saturday’s workout. I didn’t know how the body would respond this being the first full on, non-interval based MP complicated by the lack of sleep. The pace alerts were set for 4:46-4:53 which shouldn’t be too demanding or so I thought. Per usual, we kicked it off with a 4km warm up before hitting the main program.
4:43 > 4:45 > 4:44 > 4:49 > 4:51 > 4:49 > 4:51 > 4:44 > 4:45 > 4:46 (Avg 4:47/km).
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t feel smooth and I struggled towards the end. Temps were fine and there was even a gentle cooling breeze but it was darn humid. I couldn’t get into the zone. Although the HR readouts were on par for the effort, it certainly didn’t feel sustainable over a Half Marathon distance. A short warm down jog concluded the day’s workout.
Sunday’s recovery 10.2km was controlled, keeping the HR at and average of 124.
Week 2’s mileage was exactly as planned. Week 3 will see a ramp up but due to work commitments, I’ll have to do a little adjustments here and there. I’m actually looking forward to cruising the 25km next Saturday, though!