14week Marathon Training Plan: Week 2, Session 2: Yasso 800m

Fifth Session: Week 2 Session 2: Yasso 800m x 3
Goal: First Marathon (Sundown Singapore 25 March 2017)

Was looking forward to today's run after days of sinful eating and drinking. We decided to use the same warm up route as last week, 9km to the Kallang Athletics track before hitting the Yasso 800m speed set. Warm up pace was 5:45min/km, easy effort with heart rate in Zone 2. Thunderstorms just passed so we enjoyed the cool aftermath, a welcome change from our hot sessions. Note: The 9km warm up is not prescribed in the plan, so it's additional mileage we have added to the plan.

Beautiful Kallang Athletics track in the evening

Main Set: 800m in 3:00mins with active recovery for 400m in 3:00mins  x 3

The 3 x 800m set with 400m recovery was completed without any fuss. The 800m lap times were 2:59, 2:56, 2:57mins respectively, so pacing 3:45min/km was spot on, with pacing credits going to my training buddy. I'm still having issues pacing and that was evident when we decided to do an extra 800m at marathon pace (4:09min/km), where I took out the first 400m at 3:50min/km pace. Still a bit of learning for me to understand and feel our target marathon pace.

During the 3 x 800m set:

Average Heart Rate: 145bpm (includes recovery)

Max Heart Rate: 170bpm
Recovery Heart Rate (1min after finishing 800m): 1: 129bpm  2: 135bpm 3: 138bpm
Cadence: 178

Session Analysis / Review:

So far the Yasso 800m sessions prove to be the easier sessions compared to the marathon pace sessions. This could be due to the 3mins rest after each 800m, and the base fitness built over previous speed sessions at the track (prior to starting this plan). Let's see if that continues as we increase the number of 800m repeats each week to a maximum of 10 repeats in week 9 and 10 before tapering. All heart rate data is higher than last week's session even though the weather was much cooler today. I'm putting this down to the coffee (caffeine is known to elevate heart rate) prior to the session and the alcohol consumption in the last few days. Key note: Speed sets are harder sets, so I'm not looking for my heart rate to drop into Zone 3 (Endurance Zone), but to reduce a few beats per minute during exercise and during recovery.