May 27, 2012

Easy Week, Sendai Half Result, Birthday

Week of May 21 ~ 27

Ran: 0/0/8.2/0/0/0/24 - 32.2km / 20 mi.

Monday
Rest
Ran a 5k ekiden race yesterday, after a Half the week before, so think it best to rest for two days.

Speaking of the Sendai Half, I found out I won my age group. (It only took them 10 days to post the age group results!) Out of 598 men. So that was nice. I beat one guy by 11 seconds. I remember passing a guy who looked to be about 60 sometime in the last km, so I guess that was him.
One of the delivery services has been trying to deliver something to me for 3 days, but I haven't been home, nor has my wife, so I guess that is my prize.

Tuesday
Rest

Wednesday
7:30pm - club track workout.
1200/1200/1000/1000/800/800
4:24/4:20/3:34/3:37/2:59/3:00
Interval: 200m jog, then walk, abt. 3 mins.
Felt fairly good, worked pretty hard the first 4.
Weather: 21C/70F

Today was also the first day of the Far East HS track meet, at the Yokota Air Force base (about an hour by car). So I was standing and walking for a good part of 7 hours.

Thursday
Rest - sore.
Second day of the meet. Our boys finished 2nd and girls 1st, out of about 20 schools. Lots of our kids had great performances.

Oh, and my 65th birthday. No one, including myself, believes I'm that old.
This puts me in a new age group in the US, so it would be nice to run a big race next fall or spring. Maybe Boston....

Friday
11:30 - Gym workout.
Rest.

Saturday
Drank way too much last night. Can't even think about running. Went to watch the Namban Rengo (club) Beer Mile, always a fun event. If you are watching.

Sunday
4:15 - 24k in 2:01:06 @5:00/k
26:55/25:00/24:18/24:45/20:06
Warmed up after 5k. Quads started hurting after 14k. You'd think the legs would be fresh after 3 days rest, but maybe 3 days rest is too much.... Quads and left butt (but not hamstring) pretty sore the last 6k, but held the pace fairly well and picked up the last k from 5:05 to 4:50, as practice for trying to run faster when in pain. Marathon mental training.
Weather: 24C/75F, 20%, sunny
Weight: 62.2 (lots of food, not much running).

Next week will be the club 5,000m time trial on Wednesday, which I will run easily, because the next night is the twice-a-year big multi-club time trial. I'll run that one hard.

Then from Saturday, June 2nd, I'll start my summer program. The theme this year is: All hard, no easy, work your butt off.
The program will be:
Wednesday - 10k. Intervals on the track. Run them as fast as possible. No cruising. This is speed work!
Thursday - A 30k run I'm calling the Caballo Blanco run. Get off my usual marked course and just run out about 15k in various directions, then back. Use the garmin, but don't take 5k splits, don't pay attention to time. Run as you feel, but basically a moderate pace. Just a nice free-form run for the enjoyment of running.
Friday - Rest
Saturday - Total 20k very hard. Choice of various workouts, including marathon pace for 15k, half marathon pace for 10k, 5k x 3 at half pace, 3k x 6 at half pace, 10k of hills.
Fast, sustained paces is what I did not do last summer.
Sunday - 30k at a hard pace. Probably progressive. Running the second half as hard as possible. Maybe up it to 35k occasionally (although that's pretty tough in the heat).
Monday, Tuesday - Rest.
So 4 hard days, no easy days, but 3 days of rest. I want to try it and see how it goes.
Oh, and no sweets! Of any kind. The other theme is: lean and mean by autumn.

2 comments:

  1. belated birthday greetings, bob. liking the sound of the thursday 30km.. maybe i should take a leaf pout of your book...

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  2. Happy birthday Bob. You don't look a day over 59 ;) You'd be bloody competitive locally in the 55-59 or 60-64 age-groups.

    Nice racing from your school kids. I'll be interested to see how the 'all hard' plan goes. Something different! There was a bloke down here who had a similar plan... basically, he ran fast/long to exhaustion going as far as he could (usually between 27 and 35k), then he'd rest for as long as needed (2 or 3 days) and repeat. He was in his 40s, but 'only' ran about 2:37 in the marathon.

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