So many workouts, so little time.

Dec. 29, 30, 31

Mon: Off

Tues: Off (gym closed but did abs work)

Wed:

Only two months until my marathon, and there are many workouts I "should" be doing. According to various experts. And most of them sound good.

(Why is it that no matter how early I start training for a marathon, in this case July, I always want an extra one or two months before the race?)
In addition to the four basic ones I have planned each week (see 12/27 post), I could:
• Do progressive runs, 30k with 20k at a moderate pace and 10k at a hard pace, or 30k with each 5k progressively faster. Supposed to be very good for getting used to the stress of a marathon.
• Alternate 1k at marathon pace then 1k faster for...as long as I can. Or alternate one mile (1600m) in 6 mins, one mile in 7 mins. x 6. I've actually done the latter one, and it gets tough after a while.
• Do Yasso 800s.
• Do Lactate threshold (LT) runs. LT, as Pete Lyons pointed out and I also read in several running articles, is faster than marathon pace. About half marathon race pace. What I was calling LT is more properly called a Tempo Run (about halfway between marathon pace and an easy long run pace. LT is, for example, 5k @ 4:00/k x 2 or 3 (MP is 4:15).
• Or even faster: 3k @ 10k race pace (3:48/k?) x 3 or 4.

Well, today I used one, actually two, of those.
I was planning to do 5k @ 4:00/k x 2, but decided to go harder today and then easier tomorrow and easier than usual on Saturday since Mika and Yuka will force me to do 40km on Sunday. (Although I won't put up much resistance; if it was, say Steve and Chiba, it would be a different story.)
So the workout was:
Warmup: 3k in 18:20, stretching, 150m strides x 2, stretching.
Planned: 5k @ 4:00/k. Ran: 5k in 4:08/12/09/11/03.
6 mins. walk
Planned: 10k alternating 4:00 and 4:15 per k. 

Ran: 4:08/15/03/24/11/21/12/27/19/20. Actually, I would have been happy with 4:10/4:20, so I was fairly satisfied. Thought of stopping after 6k and again after 8k, but the idea of 10k of this torture appealed to me. I probably should have stopped after 8, the 9th one was very hard (was also into the wind). It was not easy, although the easier pace feels _a lot_ easier after the harder pace. Which is the purpose of the workout.
Hamstrings and legs in general were getting sore at the end, and I was pretty damn tired at the finish. This would be more enjoyable, and doable, without the hard (for me) 5k first. I will try it again. Maybe I will do a shorter version on Saturday.

19k. Total time: 1:30

Time: 12:30

Wt: 61.2

Weather: 8°, sunny, slightly windy

Shoes: 290g