Friday session, 20 Dec 2002

What: PM- 4 Miles 'Horwill Easy'
Why: To prove to myself I could have 1 run this week that went as planned!
Last Hard: As above
Last Rest: As above

Q for Drew/Achilles. When I use Franks calculation for what an easy pace should be, I get 6:45 per mile! is that right? Heres my figures and reference NB: Best time for 1500M is based on a best mile rep time & scaled down appropiately (is = 77.34 sec/400m, or 5:10/1500m). Needless to say, it doesn't feel much like recovery at the moment! KK

Hello,
What: Treadmill - Hill programe - incline 3% - speed 9.5k/h - distance: ~2K.
& x-trainers, leg press....
Last rest: Yesterday

happy birthday nessie (expensive toime of year for your nearest adn dearest tho :-S ),
only joking

what: early session:about seven miles, moderately hilly and quite fast, (nailed this one in 00:43:24)
later this evening: upper body weights, stretching and abs work, maybe a few short and sharps on the treadmill

why: because i didn't run yesterday, despite my deluded plans

last hard: wednesday
last rest: last night

have a happy christmas, and good luck to everyone who's racing

B_Phil

P.S, similarly, good luck to everyone who's visiting not often visited relatives, hope all goes...............well?!?!?

KK - it's a good question. I'm all in favour of doing recovery runs at a strong pace, getting out of the aerobic comfort zone, and banning the "jogging" concept altogether, but I'd still have to say Frank's formula is too challenging for me most days and some days I need to go as much as 30 secs. slower p/m. I guess it depends also on what type of sessions you are recovering from - again most of Frank's sessions are best recovered from in a horizontal position with a nice soft pillow under your head.

I've noticed that the terms "easy" and "steady" get bandied around pretty freely in running circles but there seems to be a vast difference of opinion as to what they actually mean in terms of pace.

whoever tells me who frank is gets a

"top of the morning to ye now"

please

BP - if we're all talking about the same Frank, it's Frank Horwill (Madman Frank to his friends) with special reference to his articles on the Serpie website. see the link in KK's posting above. enjoy. :-)

Certainly not Frank Spencer, although the incidents I've had running recently, I'm not too sure... ;)

top of the morning to ye now, mister Achilees

Nessie the Vet, Happy Birthday. Same day as wee piglet?

NO MORE WORK FOR 2 WEEKS!!!

What: 6 miles of 3 min repeats @ 10k pace followed by 3 mins @ marathon pace. The first 4 miles were ok, then the pace started to drop, but a good session.

Also swimming club for 1hr of drills.

Why: weekly speed session.
Last hard: tonight.
Last rest: yesterday.

Plain facts first:
10 miles in 65:49
mile splits: 6:30, 6:31, 6:32, 6:31, 6:24, 6:26, 6:32, 6:39, 6:47, 6:57

Average HR 166 - ludicrously high.

Longest tempo run so far & I have no intention of trying to run longer distances at this pace.
Mentally and physically, this was a very difficult outing.
First of all, despite trying to remain as relaxed as possible beforehand, I once again failed to keep my HR under control. It seems that knowing I'm going to be running just outside my comfort zone for a long period of time sends it shooting up by an extra 10-15 bpm before I even start, and I feel under a lot of pressure. As a result, in the first couple of miles, I felt less comfortable at the pace I was running than I should have.
Once I got 3-4 miles under my belt, started to feel more relaxed (you can see this in the splits) & got ahead of my target pace (for this run) of 6:30 per mile.
Then 2 factors began to slow me down from about 7 miles onwards. One was fatigue (obvious, but I'm sure it's kicking in earlier than it should as a result of my HR being so high), and the other that was my tubes started to get gunged up in the chill and not very clean air. Two coughing fits effected a partial clearance each time, but also seemed to knock some of the stuffing out of me on both occasions.
Running 4 laps of the same 2 and a bit mile course in the dark (plus a bit extra to make the 10 miles) didn't inspire me mentally either.
Could probably have done the last mile about 15 seconds faster if I'd chosen to bust a gut. Thoughts of having to recover in time to do my long run on Sunday morning acted as a disincentive.
Endured a most unpleasant 5 minutes upon finishing, trying to avoid choking on/throwing up an hour's worth of exercise-induced respiratory secretions....

Having this target of 84 minutes for Helsby is, at the moment, putting me under a lot of (self-induced) pressure. It is beginning to look really doubtful (unless I manage a monumental piece of tailgating on the day) whether I can manage it.
Off to bed very soon - stiff and knackered.