Sunday, March 18, 2007

Operation SMH

OK, my next race will be after Digger is born (yay). I'd love it to be the race that takes me under 1:50, but it's the SMH and it ain't gonna happen there.

I've decided 1:55 is a good target for a bloody hilly run, so now I just have to prepare for it. This is where my rotundrum starts (rotundrum is a word invented by DJ and I; it's a problem that just goes round and round in your head).

My training week will be thus:

Sunday AM: Long run (15 - 23K)
Monday AM: Recovery run
Tuesday AM: Hard Session
Wednesday PM or Thursday AM: Hard Session
Friday PM: 12K with Marlz at a decent pace.

The Friday run is my weekly catch up with Marlz that needs to be a decent pace because he is quicker than me, and it wouldn't be much of a session if it was too short or too easy. It's pretty much the equal of what used to be my midweek long run - not ideal a day and a half before your long run, but that's the way my week works.

So the issue is that I have two hard sessions to fill in the middle of the week. I am preparing for a hilly half and keeping in mind that C2S is a target later in the year, so I think hill repeats might be a good idea (I'm also having some ridiculous thoughts about a race in March next year which may or may not feature some big arse hills).

The three sessions I'm trying to pick from are:

- hill repeats
- 1K or 400m intervals (my favourite speedwork)
- another 12K hardish midweek long run

At the moment I'm leaning towards intervals and hill repeats. They will take less time, but may leave me a bit short for volume. It also might be a bit too much intensity. I haven't done it before, so being an experiment of one, it could be worth a shot.

There is also the option to mix it up a bit, and I reckon I'll probably end up doing that. I'm also highly likely to miss a few sessions as things get to the pointy end of the pregnancy (which is pretty pointy at 35 weeks anyway).

One week after Weston Creek and I've eaten myself stupid. I allow myself a week of that, but it's down to it now. I had an easy 15K long run today, and I'm happy to call that the end of an easy recovery week. Operation SMH starts tomorrow.

1 Comments:

Blogger TA and the Gnome said...

Ben. From my often-injured viewpoint, I'm a bit scared of so much high intensity stuff, but you know your body better than I, so your the best person to make the choice.

You have a long run (slow, I trust). You have a Tempo run (Friday). Maybe for a while, just do another 'midweek long' on Tuesday and short/med intervals on Thursday. The idea is to continue to build base - too much strength or speed this far out is likely to be counterproductive (I think).

7 or 8 weeks out, gradually add rolling hills to Tuesday & Friday and add hill repeats to Thursday, and then 4 weeks out transition from hills to fast long (5x1 & 3x2k)intervals. Get shorter and faster over the last two weeks.

Or, better still, ask someone who knows... :-) :-)

Gnome

p.s. oh, and make sure you have **50%** easy weeks, one in every four! Gnome's secret never-fail ingredient for good health (I wish)... :-)

10:17 pm  

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