Tuesday - 10.3km Easy

My standard recovery/easy run to start the week. Again, nothing special here. Just trying to keep the effort to a minimum and heart rate as low as possible.

Moving time: 1:11
Average Pace: 6:52/km
Average Heart Rate: 144
Relative Effort: 1/10.

Thursday - 10km Tempo

Finally bringing back some speed into my training.

Started with 2km of warmup, aiming for zone 2 HR, then progressed to 6km at tempo pace (~4:10/km), followed by 2km cooldown.

I found it very challenging to hold a faster pace so halfway through the tempo section I stopped for a few seconds to catch my breath for about a minute. I noticed my heart rate climbed quite high, especially in the final few kilometres of tempo. That's expected because I haven't done any high intensity work in a while so it will take some time to build that kind of fitness back.

As I usually like to do, the final kilometre was an all-out send. I got a 3:51 split and my heart rate peaked at 194, which is pretty much my max.

For the 6km of tempo, I averaged 4:07/km, with 2 splits under 4 minutes. Probably pushed slightly too hard for my first tempo workout coming back from injury but that's ok.

Finished the run with 2km of cooldown. Legs are feeling fine, just tired. Good signs so far.

Saturday - 6km Recovery Run/Walk

Another frustrating but very important recovery run.

The first few kilometers I noticed that my heart rate was very easily going above zone two, so I had to walk a bit to let it recover.

Interestingly, after about four kilometers, my heart rate settled and stayed consistently around 140-145.

Sunday - 12km Fast Finish

Much better long run today than last week, despite messing up the tracking with my watch.

I still felt quite comfortable for the 8km of warm up that I did, aiming for zone 2 heart rate. I was probably sitting in the low end of zone 3 for most of that warm up, but that's alright––effort was minimal.

After 8km, I was going for a final 4km push, aiming for around 4:20/km.

The first 3km of this segment I was running at about 75-80% effort, feeling pretty good. I went pretty much all out for the final kilometre, finishing with a 3:37 split.

It was encouraging this week to add in a bit more speed work compared to last week, felt much better doing it.

Picking it up again next week. I've got a 16km long run next Sunday, before my one week taper for the Mornington Half Marathon, which is in two weeks from today.

Weekly Summary:

Total Distance: 38.5km

12 Weeks Out.