Tuesday - 13km Easy

I think I'm finally getting the hang of easy runs. Once again this was the longest duration I've been able to stay within Zone 2 heart rate. I'm now seeing the signs of my aerobic fitness improving through these easy runs.

My average heart rate for this run was 148. For 13km, that's very good for me, even with an average pace of 5:33/km. Pace is almost irrelavant for easy runs anyway.

My main focus is maintaining a low perceived exertion and low heart rate. In doing so, I'm getting more time on my legs and increasing my base aerobic fitness.

Wednesday - 8km recovery

This week has become an experiment to see how I handle running five days a week with a lot of emphasis on my easy and recovery runs.

My pace today was a bit slower than yesterday's (5:33 vs 6:02), with my main focus being to increase bloodlfow through my legs to help with recovery. I kept a minimal effort for the whole run, trying to land as softly as I can with each step to reduce the impact and stress on my legs.

Unsurprisingly, I felt refreshed after running today with an urge to do some faster sessions.

Thursday - 10.5km Intervals

This was one of my most intense runs in recent memory.

I knew today would be tough. I needed a hard workout after a few days of easy running. My only problem was that I was unsure how I'd structure this session–– I'd either do shorter, faster intervals; or I'd do my usual tempo run with 6-8km of lactate threshold running.

I started with a 2km warmup, and then went with 4x 1km hard/1km easy, followed by 1.5km of cooldown.

Those 4 kilometres of work I did were very intense. I figured because I'm only doing one kilometere of work at a time, I might as well aim for a pace that's faster than my target marathon pace.

So I was aiming for less than 4 minutes/km.

My splits for the fast sections were:
3:58
3:46
3:35 (new 1km PR)
3:38

While these segments were definitely hard, in some ways I felt relieved to finally allow myself to run faster than usual for a longer time.

I was definitely wrecked after this workout.

Sunday - 18km Long

Plan for this run:
5:00am: Maurten Solid + Sodii Electrolytes (in 500ml water).
6:00am: Coffee.
7:00am: Started running.
8.5-9km in: Maurten Gel 100.
Post-run: Banana.

The rolling hills killed me today. I thought I'd try a different area for my long run thinking it would be flat like my usual spot, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

The run was mostly rolling hills, except for the first kilometre or so. It seemed like a net downhill for the first half, which meant an uphill second half as I was running back.

Not ideal conditions, but whatever. It's just another challenge that I have been given the chance to overcome. Running hills for me at this stage is more of a mental challenge and changing how I frame obstacles during a run. Like when I'm approaching a big hill it's easy to freak out and get in my head about how I'm going to pass it and how hard it will be or whatever. But half the challenge is putting all that aside and just sending it anyway. Most hills aren't as big as they seem.

I did not hit all my paces today. I was aiming for similar pacing as last week, but different conditions today presented unexpected challenges. That's okay. Not every run will be perfect. I felt noticeably more fatigued today, whether that was the hills or the extra volume I've done this week.

Weekly Summary:

Total Distance: 56km

21 Weeks Out.