Once again I was dreading the MP session as I had failed miserably with it last time out. However one week on I was hopeful that I’d managed to improve enough and with favourable weather conditions (i.e. little or no wind!) I’d manage to up the MP segment to 15km.
My target MP is somewhere between 4:30-4:37/km. I’ll confirm the target after the Athlone HM but even if I ‘settle’ for 4:37 pace then it’ll still be a big ask. And so, I set off the same as last week with a 1.5km easy run to the start point at Ashtown Station. Today I decided to get the longer Eastern section out of the way first so that if I began to wane I’d have only the shorter, more manageable Western section to close out the session.
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| MP run pace and HR |
Things went pretty well with me maintaining pace adequately and the HR around where it should be. The pace was a bit off with the watch in a couple of places where there were sharp turns, like when I turned around at the 12th Lock – the peak at 11km in the graph and the much faster 12th km afterwards when both were done at the same intensity!
By the time I got back to Ashtown I was almost done so seeing as I was still feeling good I threw in an extra bonus split to bring it up to 16km @ 4:36/km av pace. Much improved performance on last time out.
Friday, 6th September, 2013 – 7.4km Recovery Run (5:20/km)
Just a very relaxed recovery run after yesterday. Left hammy still not gone away!
Saturday, 7th September, 2013 – 8.6km Recovery run (5:27/km)
I intended to join a couple of others in the PP for this as an LSR but ended up going in to town to watch the Ireland match on Friday evening so had to change plans for the LSR. So, I found myself going for a run at 5:30pm with the intention of doing the LSR. The wind was blowing a little more than I’d like and the freezing rain wasn’t adding any appeal. Unsurprisingly my mood changed over the first few kms and as the run felt more miserable by the kilometre I was becoming aware of a couple of twinges. I guess sub consciously I threw in the towel and decided to jog home for 8.6km in total.
Sunday, 8th September, 2013 – 32.0km LSR (5:22/km)
After yesterday’s aborted LSR attempt this run was hanging over my head for a long time. I eventually went out around the same time as yesterday (after the Hurling final finished – what an ending!) but this time drove to the PP. The weather was ideal today and I was happy that I’d truncated yesterdays run.
I took this handy the whole way, just wanted to ensure I got the required distance in the legs. A loop of the park was followed by a retrace of the MP run from Thursday. By the time I returned to the car but had 200m to rack up for my 32km total, so it was a case of just getting the few metres in before coming to a halt. The av pace was 5:22/km (+/- 5 secs). which was pretty consistent for most of the run. Next LSR will have to be a little bit faster though as that is still almost a minute slower than MP!
Only 5 weeks to go now!
Week 36 Summary:
RTW: 6 from 7 days
DTW: 91.6 km
DTY: 2,904.7 km
Chicago - 35 days (5 weeks, 0 days)
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