Goal: First Marathon (Sundown Singapore 25 March 2017)
Car-free Sunday today, so we decided to use the 5km loop of closed roads within the Singapore city for our marathon pace session. The car-free Sunday initiative has been running since last year, and attracts cyclists, rollerbladers, runners and alike to descend into the city and enjoy the urban route through the heart of the city and onto part of the Singapore Formula 1 circuit.
With the music blasting and activities in the Padang area, we decided to start in front of the Old Supreme Court Building and move clockwise around the car-free Sunday loop. As you can see from the GPS tracking above, the Padang area was able to track us accurately, but once we entered the CBD area that's littered with high rise buildings, our GPS struggled to pinpoint our location. That's where we noticed jumps in our pace data on our watches, and so I decided to disregard the watch altogether and run based on "feel". Easier said than done as we become so reliant on our GPS data. So today was a good session to forget technology and try and run based on what I thought was 4:09min/km pace. As I couldn't trust the GPS pace data, and therefore the distance, I decided to run the required 53mins so that at least I had the required duration in my legs. With cyclists and runners all over the course loop, it was quite motivating when I could feel my legs start to tighten up and feel heavy. It took two laps of the entire course and two separate laps of the Padang to clock 53mins (as I didn't want to finish at the Tanjong Pagar end).
During the 13.0km run:
Average Heart Rate: 153bpm
Max Heart Rate: 168bpm
Average Cadence: 186
Success Criteria Checkpoints: 16 / 42 sessions completed (38%)
1. Did I hold the pace over the prescribed distance: Not sure, as the GPS was bouncing around between the buildings, so ran to 53mins at what I thought was 4:09min/km pace.
2. Did my heart rate stay in Zone 3: No, but a dramatic decrease in Zone 4 for this session, down 29%! This is encouraging, but I want to check this against next week's session as I may not have been case running at 4:09min/km pace (as I was running without accurate GPS, and based on feel, which could have been slower)
3. How well am I recovering: I felt my hamstring and calves were tight during the warm up, which led to tightness at the back of my legs midway through the run. I'll need to focus a lot more on stretching and foaming over the next few days.
During the 13.0km run:
Average Heart Rate: 153bpm
Max Heart Rate: 168bpm
Average Cadence: 186
Session Analysis / Review:
Another tough session as the legs had some residual tightness from the long Friday evening session. Also not having the GPS data made it hard to know if you're hitting the targets, but I used it as an opportunity to focus on cadence and form instead. You can see from the diagram above the difference in the second half of the run where cadence data starts to move slightly upwards and plateau. As I get tired, I tend to make a conscious effort to think about my cadence and efficiency. Heart rate data was a nice surprise, with a big increase in Zone 3 and reduced effort in Zone 4. Interestingly, my resting heart rate this morning (immediately upon waking up) was 38bpm. It's the lowest I've ever recorded and could mean I'm getting fitter as a result of this training. If only my legs would also say that.Success Criteria Checkpoints: 16 / 42 sessions completed (38%)
1. Did I hold the pace over the prescribed distance: Not sure, as the GPS was bouncing around between the buildings, so ran to 53mins at what I thought was 4:09min/km pace.
2. Did my heart rate stay in Zone 3: No, but a dramatic decrease in Zone 4 for this session, down 29%! This is encouraging, but I want to check this against next week's session as I may not have been case running at 4:09min/km pace (as I was running without accurate GPS, and based on feel, which could have been slower)
3. How well am I recovering: I felt my hamstring and calves were tight during the warm up, which led to tightness at the back of my legs midway through the run. I'll need to focus a lot more on stretching and foaming over the next few days.
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