14week Marathon Training Plan: Week 1, Session 3: Easy Run + MP Run

Third Session: Week 1 Session 3: Easy Run 1:30hrs + 1.6km @ Marathon Pace (MP)
Goal: First Marathon (Sundown Singapore 25 March 2017)

Today's set is a long set, with a "kick" of speed at the end. The kick at the end requires us to hold our target marathon pace of 4:09 min/km for 1.6km, AFTER 1.5 hours of easy jogging. Given our personal circumstances we were able to free up some time in the mid morning so we headed out for our third session in the 14 week plan. Mid morning in Singapore is already pretty hot, but considering the fact that it's an easy jog to begin with, we thought it was achievable with our hydration belts (500ml capacity each).

Singapore Botantical Gardens

Main Set: Long slow easy run for 1:30 hours immediately followed by 1.6km at 4:09 min/km

We made our way towards the Singapore Botanical Gardens following the river from Tiong Bahru, to Red Hill then through the beautiful estate of Dempsey. Our slow jog was somewhere between 5:45 to 6:00 min/km pace (based on feel as I had made the rookie mistake of forgetting to charge my GPS watch and decided to save the remaining juice for the 1.6km at the end of the set). Doing a long easy jog is much easier with a friend, as time goes by much faster and you're also able to counter check the pace with a conversation (otherwise you're going to fast to be considered an easy jog). We definitely felt the effect of running in the middle of the day, reaching many times for our bottles, refuelling our bottles at water points multiple times and dripping head to toe with sweat. However, we thought about the positives of being in the heat especially as we race in Half Ironmans (70.3) in the region (Putrajaya, Bintan, Iskandar, Desaru etc). Take for example, Ironman Putrajaya 70.3; start time approx 7:15am for age groupers: 40min swim plus 2:35hr bike takes you to 10:30am before you start the half marathon run. Exactly the same time we started our jog this morning. So after a tour of the botanical gardens and surrounding neighbourhood, and after 1:30hrs of pounding the road, our legs felt "heavy". That's the magic of this set; long slow jog, exhaust the legs, than run at marathon pace to get the body to feel what it'll be like in the middle of the race. We chose to end up at Evans NUS Athletics track so we had a measurable 1.6km (4 loops). After a quick pep talk, we set off for the mile. Immediately the feedback from the track was interesting, we felt like bricks on a trampoline. The athletics track had just been renovated and provided a nice bounce, whilst we were "heavy bricks" from the slow jog. We finished the 4 loops without any issues in a time of 6:41mins, hitting our target finish time. Finished the session with chocolate milk drink and a slab of duck breast each to top up our protein and carbohydrate stores. Happy to report another session completed successfully.

During the 1.6km run:
Average Heart Rate: 147bpm

Max Heart Rate: 158bpm
Cadence: 182

Heart Rate + Cadence metrics for 1.6km MP run

Session Analysis / Review:

Great session to get the body to feel the heaviness in the legs as you spend more time on the road. The easy runs will peak at 2hours in addition to having to hold marathon pace for longer distances at the end of the set (peak at 9.6kms). Looking at my heart rate data for the 1.6km, it shows most of it in Zone 3 or less. That's good news, but ideally I would like to run all my marathon pace (4:09 min/km)work at Zone 3, so there's some more fitness required to get there, but good news is that we're only at week 1 of the 14 week plan. Post session, no limp, or overly sore legs. Just sore enough to know you just had a long session, but not enough to stop me from doing a session on the bike trainer tomorrow. At this early stage in the plan, I'm assessing myself against three key success criterias for each session:
1. Can I hold the pace over the prescribed distance,
2. Can my heart rate stay in Zone 3,
3. How well am I recovering so that there's no residual soreness going into the next session.