Mileage: 15 miles
AM: 3.75 miles; PM: 11.25miles (Including 20*400m with one minute recovery all at 75secs)
Tonight I returned to the track for the first time in a couple of weeks. I was, however, not doing the normal club session. I am now well into my marathon training and everything needs to work towards that. There is still a role for the track in my training, but it has to be geared towards building endurance, as well as speed. So tonight's session was one I borrowed from Hailey Haining the Scottish marathon runner who was on stand-by to run at the 2008 Olympics in place of Paula Radcliffe. Unfortunately for her, she did not get the chance as Paula made the start line.
As I understand it this workout is designed to make marathon pace feel easier, increase confidence that you can run at speed while fatigued, and is also good for VO2max, lactate threshold, and running economy. It's part of a cycle of training I plan to do on a Tuesday night that will build my endurance and as well as keep me running faster than marathon pace for a considerable time, so that when I run at marathon pace it feels more comfortable. My upcoming Tuesday sessions include half mile (5k pace), mile (faster than 10k pace) and 2 mile reps (half marathon pace), all I also plan to return to this 400m session in 5 weeks, but add another 5 reps, so make it 25 reps of 400m at the same pace to keep my speed work up.
Dan, Colin and Niamh joined me for the session. Dan and Niamh are both training for Amsterdam too and Colin is training for the Glasgow Half Marathon in September, so a good session for them too. I normally run 400m at around 65-70 secs, so on paper running them at 75 seconds sounds pretty easy. It is not. It's not the outright pace that is tough, it's the relentless nature of the session and the small recovery time that's the killer. The pace is still pretty high too, exactly 5 minutes per mile pace, so faster than 5k pace by some way. I was pleased to say that most of my reps were exactly 75 secs, 2 were a little slower and 3 were a little quicker, but only by only by a second or two either way. It was pretty tough towards the end. By the time we reached 15 reps I could feel it a lot in my legs, they were wobbly and fatigued, but I held my form and the later reps were where I actually went a little faster than I was supposed to. I think this was because we were getting closer to the end of the session and I felt as though I could push it a little harder. Having said that I was pretty close to the limit, so I am not sure how much more time I could have shaved off if I'd tried to push it. The rest of guys felt the same, we were all pretty tired by the end of the session and agreed that it was a tough one. It was really good to have a group to work with and we took it in turns to lead a lap, which helped us to keep the reps steady and meant that we each had responsibility for keeping the pace right. It was also very windy in the back straight where we finished off the rep, so it was good to have different people leading home.
All in all a really good session, which has made me feel pretty good. I am already looking forward to Thursday's session and then another bash at 26 miles on Sunday!
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