14week Marathon Training Plan: Week 8, Session 1: MP Run

Twenty-second session: Week 8 Marathon Pace (MP) Set: 16.1 km
Goal: First Marathon (Sundown Singapore 25 March 2017)

Morning beach outing at Sentosa

The rest of my family are now in Singapore, after a whirlwind trip from Melbourne to Johor Bahru within a matter of days. We decided to combine my Saturday morning run workout with a family trip to the beach, so everyone woke up nice and early and headed to Sentosa. Whilst my family hit the sand to relax, I met up with my two running partners and we began our warm up run (approx 1km). Immediately, I could feel tightness in my hamstring and my calves. The reason was quite obvious; not enough recovery time between runs, as the last workout was a monster 2:40hrs session and that ended on Thursday evening (34hrs since that last run). Nonetheless, I decided to continue and see what I could pull out. After the warm up, my legs felt better, so we reset our watches and off we went. Unfortunately, less than 2mins into the run, I grimaced in pain as I felt a sharp cramping sensation in my left thigh (quadriceps). I immediately slowed down for a minute or so, and tried to jog it off. I was shocked to have a cramp in my thighs considering I felt soreness only in the hamstring and calves. However, using the slow jog to think about it, I believe the reason was because of overcompensation. I was worried about straining my hamstrings, so I must have been overcompensating with the quads to try and alleviate the hamstring muscles. I continued to take it easy and jog for another 20mins to loosen up the muscles and rethink about how I'll complete this session. Although my left quad left better, instead of taking another shot on the same day, I decided to give myself another day of rest and attack the session tomorrow morning. I headed towards the beach to find the kids and spent the rest of the morning getting wet and sandy (and licking my wounds).

Failed attempt at Marathon Pace for 16.1kms at Sentosa

Main Set: 16.1kms in 01:06:40hrs (pace constant at 4:09 min/km)

Sunday morning, second attempt; I decided to use the Tiong Bahru Park Loop (used on my first 4.8km MP run) as it's nearby, and quieter on the weekend mornings. This meant just over 12 loops of the park. With a very short warm up (a few hundred metres), I decided to just get on with it. The first few kms are always the toughest as the body warms up (I was clocking 4:15 and 4:11min/km pace in the first 2 kms respectively) and was behind the intended goal pace. I didn't panic, just slowly worked into a rhythm and over the next 10kms, was averaging 4:06min/km pace. It was a great confidence booster to see the watch click over every km and displaying my pace under 4:09min/km. For this session, I made a conscious effort not to look at the watch until the km markers to assess the average pace, which worked out really well. The remaining 4kms were ran at around 4:09min/km pace, but in total for the 16.1km session, the final run time was 1:06:18hrs, averaging a pace of 4:07min/km. I was ecstatic. A tick in the box after a failed attempt the day before.

During the 16.1km run:
Average Heart Rate: 160bpm
Max Heart Rate: 169bpm
Average Cadence: 190

Session Analysis / Review:

I'm very happy with this result. I wasn't sure where the legs were at, and the course is not ideal for a long run (12 mind numbing loops with corners), but the key difference, and the one thing I would attribute this sessions success to, was my mental strength. I was able to constantly talk to myself, and reminding myself why I'm doing this, and in doing so, continue to "eat the pain" during the run. I'm hoping I can rely on it for 42kms. I'm also noticing that my cadence is still increasing week on week for marathon pace runs; in the first half of this run, it looks like it stays above 190, before it starts to drop to sitting above 185, presumably due to fatigue. Hydration wise, I used one small bottle of Pocari Sweat and no gels (unintentionally left it at home), which was not enough as I finished the bottle with about 3.5kms remaining.

Success Criteria Checkpoints:
(21/42 sessions completed): 50%,  (1/42 sessions missed): 2%,  Total Plan (22/42): 52%
1. Did I hold the pace over the prescribed distance: Yes, and a two seconds quicker on the overall average pace. I'm also happy I managed to hold the pace on this route as it's a "slower" route due to the corners and slightly higher total elevation compared to the other routes I use.
2. Did my heart rate stay in Zone 3: Seeing more green! 34% in the green Zone 3.
3. How well am I recovering: Definitely sore after the session, and after a shower, the recovery compression pants went on and legs were elevated.