Speed Thrills: Just missing a PB and hitting the track hard

EDIT: It turns out that the Kolonnade Retail Park 10km went much better than I thought and my official time was 38:22 for 27th place out of 1672 finishers

Over the last 3-4 months, I just forgot how much I love running fast. Now of course fast is relative, on a single tracl repeat I would struggle to keep up with Mary Keitany while she is scorching her way to a sub 2:20 marathon, but for me it's blinding fast, and it's thrilling! I haven't done a true speed workout since mid August. as session of 6 X 800 at 90s per lap. My body sent out alarm signals after that workout, and to get through marathon training I dropped the fast stuff and instead supplemented my endurance runs with session of long marathon pace repeats that eventually became one continuous running. Looking back those were long arduous sessions. There was no rush just work, work, work. That's not to say I didn't enjoy them, but going round at 1:44-1:48 per lap for 5-10 laps worth per repeat is a different kind of beast to even 90s laps.

After my harrowing but amazing experience doing my first marathon I was concerned for my speed. Leading up to the marathon I had run my 10km PB of 39:04 and them lowered my half marathon PB to 1:25:28, but those races came 10 and 5 weeks before the marathon respectively. With no speed work, the only reminder that I still had anything approaching a fifth gear were a couple of ~5km time trials where I was able to hit 3:40/km splits admittedly on elevation conjusive to fast times...i.e dowhill! I had convinced myself I would have to start again.

Post-marathon, I endeavoured to take 2 weeks off but I couldn't stay away and ended up following Hal Hidgons recovery plan, well the first two weeks of it. It involves gradually easing back in and to be honest the first couple of runs hurt a lot. By week 2 though I managed a 6km tempo and the aforementioned time trial, and my legs were suddenly remembering something they used to do long before marathon training had become the routine.

The feeling the way back slowly after the marathon comeback race

I decided to enter a 10km on 17th November that promised a flat, fast and easy route. This being a Gauteng race in Pretoria, I was skeptical of that description but I really wanted to get out anyway. The race was at the Kolonnade Retail Park in Montana, Pretoria North, a bit out of the way but some careful planning, pre-entering and leaving reasonably meant it was a stress free morning and I even managed to warm up properly. Making my way to the start I was relieved to see that it looked as if walkers and runners had a separate start. A relief, I thought.

I positioned myself close to the start balloon, which I hoped would help me get away fine. While I wasn't planning to race I hate getting caught up in the pack early. Bizarrely, the runners were filling in from the front, so my position in close proximity to the start quickly became in not so proximity to the start. This meant that getting away was difficult once the gun went, 6 minutes later than the scheduled start. Then the separate start for runners and walker proved to be ineffectual as the merge was literally immediate meaning there was another bottleneck as soon as the merge took place. Grrr.

This is my pace graph from my Garmin

Ridiculous

I din;t actually start running until around 50s on my watch. Playing around with the player view on Garmin Connect it was not surprising to discover that I covered just 50m in the first 48s and 100m up to 57s when thankfully I was now at full speed.

From that point on it was just bliss. I ran a perfect race, dismissing immediately an fears I had about marathon running obliterating my raw speed. The read out from the Garmin is delight. Other than the first kilometre and the 9th kilometre, every split was below 4:00 and just one slower than 3:50. In reality I am actually in better 10km shape than I've ever been. Taking out that horrific start, I was rocking along at 3:50/km for almost 10km, and with my own loose maths, would have knocked out something in the region of 38:30. The course was 90% flat with about 60m eleveation but having just run a marathon two weeks before I will take that! My unofficial time was 39:16 just 12s short of my PB and in the race conditions and my own physical condition I think it is still a really good time and something for me to build on going forward.

To Tempo and To Interval

Whilst I have already chose my next marathon (Slow Mag, 14 April 2013) and have a rough skeleton of a shorter (12 weeks) but higher mileage program (90km/week peak and and an average of 72km/week), I have decided to keep myself busy by running fast in the forthcoming 9 weeks, starting with a goal to break my 10km PB. My goal is aggressive  sub 38:00 and ideally a 90s PB which would put me in the 37:30 range. I genuinely believe I have the leg speed to do it but I need to seriously worked on my pace stamina and also just need to be brave on race day! My training now is 6 weeks long and involves 3 weeks of stamina based efforts, 2 weeks of speed and a week to mini taper to the Old Years race in Pretoria on 29 December, a flat fast course with a sting in the tail

To work on that stamina means running my favourite workout, tempos! Tempos were staple of my running diet for the first half of the year and I believe were the primary contributor to my initial wave of PBs. They gave way to more endurance but now I can devote one weekly run to this workout. I plan to start off at 20miutes and build up to 35 minutes of tempo pace running by the end of my program. The tempos will be supplemented with cruise intervals later on as I do raw speed training. My first tempo this week was a ~7km run (7.4km it ended up as) with a 5km portion at  tempo pace. My tempo zone is 3:50-4:00 and I nailed the 5km in 19:30 (3:54 pace), right in the zone and pretty much even pace/

Today, I did a session of short track intervals, 10 x 400m, looking for control, good form and most of all consistency.While I keep thinking I have done speed work, in reality until today, I could count the number of genuine interval sessions I had done in the past 10 months on my two hands, and none of them were particularly high intensity or high volume. While I have slowly been warming up to running laps, and will extol the virtues of the task to anyone who asks, I am not overly enthusiastic about the monotony and have rather done fartleks on the road instead.

So I wasn't really sure what to aim for but since my 10km best case target pace is 3:45 I wanted a string of sub 90s 400m to get these creaky legs turning again. And since it was early on in training I didn't want to push too hard hittin 5km pace and faster.  This is how it went in raw numerical detail.

Interval	Time	Pace (/km)	Recovery (300m)
1	86	03:35	86
2	84	03:30	86
3	83	03:27	91
4	83	03:27	92
5	83	03:27	96
6	82	03:25	90
7	82	03:26	90
8	82	03:25	92
9	81	03:23	95
10	76	03:11	93
Average	82.2	03:25	91.1

To be honest I was really surprised with that outcome, both the pace and the relative comfort with which I managed them. Somewhere in the middle of intervals 7 and 8 I doubted I would get through but by the 9th I was good again. And the 76s was on a whim, I just decided to push a little bit harder and see what would happen. What really makes me happy is that other than the two outliers the first and the last, that is some pretty consistent running, and I didn't struggle too much as the session progressed. Later on this will be bumped to 12 x 400 and I'm not even remotely worried anymore. While I knew I would I would enjoy the tempo, I was expecting some serious burn. 

Coming up I will do some 800s and 1000s before revisiting the 400s again in week 4, then closing off with 1000s in week 5 and low volume 800s in the final week, all hopefully at this pace of 3 around 3:25-3:35, corresponding to 3km-5km pace for my target 10km time. Week 4 and 5 will also see  me doing mile repeats at cruise interval pace so closer to 8km pace just to maintain some stamina.

I have once check point, a 10km race on 8 December where I should be comfortable running at or just faster than my current PB pace of 3:54. I'm not going for any fireworks just yet and will in fact be doing that race at the top end of my tempo zone.

So post-marathon running is off to a joyful and fast start and I hope to keep it up!

The Triple Bill (28km-30km-32km)

The last time I posted, I had the harsh reality of preparing for a marathon brutally brought home as my body was literally grinding to a halt. Had my Wanderers 10km not gone well, there was a good chance that I would have cut my losses, taken the new endurance base, and switched focus to a January/February 2013 marathon. I was humbled, but running that 39:04 10km PB during an otherwise challenging period gave me a lift. I came out of that with renewed vigour, and for the first time a physical awareness, not just reading and accepting the truth, of the challenge that lay ahead. There was still lots of work to be done and in some ways the coming three weeks would lay the foundation that would set me on my way way physically and mentally.

The Triple Bill

I have been modifying my training, with some research and discussions with my coach. So along the way as either I reached milestones quicker than expected (speed) or struggled in others (training volume), we have had to change things to accommodate my rookie legs. The last change we did was just before my week or reckoning and to accommodate the tune up half marathon, a sequence of long runs that I had thought nothing of lay ahead. In short it was a progressive build up, within the accepted 10% norm, 28km-30km-32km, the triple bill.

I'm sure you can imagine just how daunting that was.

 Post Wanderers 10km I eased into the weekend with only 3 sessions. A casualty of my near meltdown was dropping down to two quality sessions, something I had planned to do anyway. I had been on a diet of a speed session, a strength session (hill circuits) and the long. A concept that I have been reading about and one that appeals to my scientific background is that of scientific background. I read about the training of Renato Canova, coach of some of the fastest Kenyans doing the rounds. His principle is that one should train specifically for the event that they are preparing for. As one gets closer to the event sessions begin to approximate, as feasibly as possible the event. So a standalone hill circuit is great for general strength. A long run great for endurance. A speed session great for leg turnover. But in the context of marathon training (or any event) these should be tailored for the event. He argues that we do our long runs to slowly and our speed sessions too short and quickly. Speed sessions should tends towards marathon pace or high volume short intervals, and long runs should be more intense but obviously should never turn in a 32km time trial. He advocates 5-10% slower than target/predicted marathon pace. The 10% mark conveniently falls right in the window of my predicted long run pace with any training calculator though closer to the faster end, eg 4:55-5:34min/km from Runner's World, and I typically do my long runs at 5:00-5:10.



Round 1: 27 August to 2 September 

This was a low volume week. I did four sessions. I took Monday and Tuesday off then did my quality session, long intervals, 3X3km at predicted marathon pace or 4:20-4:30min/km, with moderate recovery or 600m at easy training pace, approximately 5min/km. I was struggling with pacing, going off to fast at the start of the interval but it got easier by the third repeat. An easy 8km on Thursday was followed by a rest day and the the 5km parkrun at Ebotse. I ran fastish, finishing second in 19:57.

The long run was a test, with that 26km run still at the back of my mind. I did a 14km loop, that has a bit of everything in it, nice flats and a bit of hills. The first lap was a breeze and I came through in 1:11. The second lap was tougher. A lot tougher. I felt it at 25km in particular approaching that distance record. Despite that I managed to negative split the run, doing the second lap in 1:09 and finishing in a neat 2:20 for 5:00min/km pace, right in my zone.

Four sessions, 54km

Round 2: 3 - 9 September

This was a very challenging week. My son was hospitalized with pneumonia on Monday so while I got all my running in it wasn't the main focus, juggling long hospital stays, little sleep and work. I got my first quality session in on Tuesday morning. The aim was after doing the 2km and 3km repeats on the track to put it together on the road. So I did the same 14km loop from my long run. I just start out easy and picked up the pace so by 4km I was doing marathon pace effort. I managed 4:27min/km for my effort period.

I did my easy run on Wednesday on the back of 36 hours where I got only 2 hours sleep. Stress busting but not fun. On Thursday we had out annual staff and postgrad fun run at WITS. The weather was an absolute misery, cold and wet. It was just shy of 4km, and I scored 2nd place in a surprisingly quick 14:25. The course forms the backbone of my hill circuit, and I had not done a lap faster than 16:20, though admittedly that was in warmer conditions with at least two laps. On Saturday I did a nice 10km run.

My long run route was again the same loop with 500m added to the beginning and 500m at the end. This time the toughness factor went up quite a bit. For one I felt the hurt from the start of the second lap already. It was more mental as my pace never dropped. If anything I was getting more determined as my body endeavoured to trick me into giving in. 1:17 and 1:13 laps tell me as much. After 25km there was this back and forth dynamic between body and mind. At the end it was a solid 30km in 2:30, another negative split run.

5 sessions, 68km

Round 3: 10 - 16 September

This was a great week. The confidence has been building and with each long run I have gotten more confident while also becoming more realistic. On Tuesday I ran on the grass at WITS, a very easy 10km. In the evening I went to the Comrades Road Show in Sandton. It was very interesting. For a brief moment I was considering reversing my pledge to become a better marathon for a few years before doing the ultimate human race. There were some eye popping statistics: only 22.4% of runners run 9 hours (Bill Rowan) or quicker, only 5% get silver (6:00-7:30) and only 0.2% each get gold (top 10 women and men) and Wally Hayward (sub 6 hours). Then Lindsay Parry spoke and while his talk should have put the fear of the running gods into me, it actually made the whole experience seem more manageable as long as there is sufficient planning. Anyway no earlier than 2014!

My marathon pace tempo was done on Wednesday evening and I must say I struggled. I'm definitely a morning runner, and even enjoy a tea time or lunch time run over the evening. With work I find I'm tired and evening traffic is less pleasant. I did 15km, with a 3km warm up and 2km cool down. I really struggled to get into pace in the firs 5km of the race pace portion but finished well and managed 44:50, but it was tougher than I would have expected. Mandatory rest on Friday was followed by 10km in 52:00 on Saturday.

My first 32km run was quite an event. I had a Pepperoni pizza the night before. Big mistake as I found out about 21km into the run. The weather had also taken a turn for the worse on Friday evening and it started out cold, dingy and wet. I had wanted to do a dress rehersal, so my Run/Walk For Life kit, Falke socks, Zoom Elites and trying drinks on the go in a cup. I had to wear tights and a compression vest. As luck would have it it got hot as the run progressed. I also had to vary my route which I had planned to approximate the undulating Soweto Marathon. Traffic increased, with (angry) people going to church, and some were total dickheads. I ran with my father for 27km and he got really riled by the idiots including one who was literally trying to get as close to us as possible. A few old church goers were even motioning for us to bugger off.

Anyway, with all the modifications the run ended up being 33km. The pace was slower than I usually run as I ran with my father but to be fair the solo efforts are tough anyway.We varied the pace, I surged in the middle and at the end once he stepped. At 30km the running gods delivered my package, my bag of hurt. I really had to work through it, and most of the last kilometre was hard work. That last 6 I ran on my own was at 4:50min/km. I was hurting at the end but felt better than I did the previous two weeks and now I feel great again. The body has adapted nicely to the distance and I'm feeling a lot better about my prospects for the race. There is still lot's of work to do though.

5 sessions, 78km

More to come

The following week is a cut back week, dropping back to 20km for the long run. Then there is the mini taper for the City2City half marathon. I really don't know what to expect there. I'm almost certain I will PB it's a matter of how much. The course is unfriendly at the start with three long pulls in the first half then it's downhill  to the finish. I believe if I run smart in the first half and use the downhill for the last 10km I can run a good sub 90.

Post City2City I have my last two quality weeks with a 25km and the final 32km to come. Then it's three weeks to D-Day.

Happy days!

12 months to a sub 40:00 10km?

Progression of 10km and 5km times over the past year or so

Well not quite!

The last 12 months have been great, and I have been really pleased with the progress I have made, particularly in 2012 with a more focused and structured approach to training. The last six months of 2011 when really just foundational, getting some miles and setting some benchmarks. This year has been about taking big strides, really massive ones.

Improving my 10km has been a big feature of my first year as a commited runner, starting way back in August last year when I ran the Vodacom Country Challenge in 51:19. I knew I would get faster, but how much faster was what I didn't know.

This past weekend I got to find out. Post Wally Hayward, even though I have bee technically just base building, the increasing intensity of my training has meant that my times have been tumbling both in what I can sustain in training and come race day. Thus with the promise and flat fast route at the Hope Starts in Hatfield event, I knew that my PB of 42:38 was barring some disaster was going to tumble. It was not a case of if, but by how much!

The venue was The Fields shopping centre in the heart of Hatfield. I love shopping mall races. Most of the shops open their doors early to take advantaged of of the hundreds of runners and of course after the race, breakfast is there on offer. But I have  a theory with the races. The constraint of having a fixed start and end point perhaps affects the distance measurement. Nothing worse that expecting weary runners to walk a long way back to the start. At an earlier event at the Jakaranda Shopping Centere in early May, I ran a sedate 64, having done is a training, but curiously my official time was a somewhat quicker 61:10. I didn't think much of it then but after Saturday's race I have an idea as to where that discrepancy may have come from.

I have been training hard and to be honest I am a bit tired but I gave this event everything. Almost too much. I set off at a very unsustainable pace, hitting the first km mark in 3:40, with 2km and 3km coming up on a downhill, that pace never relented and I went through 3km in 11:10. With that being 37:13 pace I was literally laughing at myself knowing that I was never going to keep that up. I consoled myself with that I was banking time. Something I always swear I am never going to do.

At this point we had gone past Loftus Versveld, that mighty rugby stadium, and were nowing climbing to had back towards Hatfield. This climb as shallow as it was put the brakes on that early pace as I slowed to a little of 4:00min/km pace. Four kilometres disappeared at  15:15, and went through 5km in 19:25. This is where things got a little fishy. The finish had been clearly marked at the mall and with both 5km and 10km following the same route, this point was still quite a long way from the end. Hmmm. I minded my own business as we split from the 5km runners.

The second loop was a little different around the stadium but with the same downhill portion, 4:05 pace reverted back to sub 4 min pace and I cruised through to 8km in 31:10 and then hit the 9km point in 35:10. With a little under 5min to get to 40:00 and 1km to go, a PB and a sub 40 was surely in the bag. In the first lap I had seen a 10 painted on the road close to the finish. At the start, a few of the faster looking runners, talking about running 32s were saying how they had the route was closer to 10.6km. Indeed I went past that curious 10 in 39:30! My legs were starting to give in and the end was not in sight. Clock ticked over 40, the 41 and I did the unthinkable and walked for about 10 seconds out of exasperation. Then got my legs ticking over again and finished in 42:08 on my clock but with an official time of 42:24.

So two possibilities exist here. The route was 10km and the boards were placed incorrectly. But each and every one?!?!?!? Or more likely the route was long, the boards were correct and the need to finish at the mall meant adding on an extra 5-600 metres was unavoidable. My footpod usually measures short, but in my lighter Zoom Elite's which allow me to keep up short, high frequency strides was in sync with the boards. It had me through 5km in 19:30 and 10km in 39:20, and measured a final distance of 10.67, somewhat in line with the rumblings of 10.6 km at the start. The official distance as it turns out was 10.5km.

I really felt good on the day, and felt fast and having been doing my tempos at around 4 min/km pace, I felt that with the route and with the weather that I could run a sub 40 10km. Unfortunately I will  not know at least until the next race at the end of July. My priorities are shifting now though as it is now 18 weeks to the Soweto Marathon. Breaking 40 minutes for 10km is no longer the priority and now if it happens it does.

One thing I did take out of this race was adhering to a pre race pacing plan. Already aiming for  faster than 4 min/km was beyond my PB which was at 4:16 pace. Of course having done a 5km at 3:34 pace and a 15km at 4:07 pace were signs that I am faster than 4:16 pace. However going out at 3:43 pace over the first three kms was suicidal. I could have perhaps managed 3:50 pace if I was a bit more conservative but in the end I managed around 3:57 pace which was still a huge improvement. That gives me a solid based to work off for marathon training. My goal was to get faster. Adding speed is potentially more difficult that adding endurance as opposed to get fit for long distance then trying to get faster. So getting the speed in the bank before getting ready for the long haul was always the challenge. And to have potentially taken 3:00 off a 10km time I achieved 8 weeks ago is just great.

The PB run continues...

This morning I'm still beaming from another uplifting race weekend. After my 15km two weeks ago, I posted about the S-curve and were I felt I was in the scheme, and also the impending plateau when I'll have to start working a lot harder for just a few seconds gain. Right now though I need to just keep on training and just riding the crest of this crazy wave I'm on until it's loses steam.

To be honest, I haven't necessarily felt any faster since that 15km. I put in two quality speed sessions since then. On the  12th, I use what is possibly the only useful bit of flat on WITS main campus to do short intervals. It's approximately 300m. I did six repeats aiming for 60 seconds and I did them all in  59-61 seconds, jogging back to the start as recovery. This past week I was on leave so I took the opportunity after dropping my son off at school to do some quality. On Monday, I submitted my entry for the Runner's World 1km Challenge, doing that in 3:22. It surprised me actually how difficult one all out kilometre is but considering in February doing an 800m in 3:05 was too much for me it's a lot of progress. On Tuesday morning I hit the track, and did 5 X 400m aiming for 80s, and once again I was consistent doing one at 79, one at 82 and the remainder on the money. I finished off the session with an 800m and managed 2:44. On Thursday I headed back to Centurion for the Nike+ Run Club aiming to really let fly now that I know the course. I covered the ~3.5km loop in 13:14, 3:46, which I was chuffed with considering that at times when navigating the mall bits it's almost an almost course and there is some human traffic to contend with.

All that fast stuff did mean that I was a little jaded come Saturday morning when it was time for the Take 5 Team Relay at the Waterkloof Airbase. And when it started to drizzle on the way there I was feeling a bit gloomy. The rain cleared away and even though there was a chill in the air it was pleasant. And with the route being the flattest that I have ever witnessed at a race fast times were there for the taking. My only concern was the changeover area which as I guessed would get cluttered but thankfully I was doing the first leg so it wasn't going to be too bad.

The race was scheduled for an 8am start, another boon as the extreme chill of the morning was almost certainly gone. This was only my third 5km and I'm still none the wiser as to how to approach the distance. It's almost certainly too short to have a strategy but equally go out too fast or too slow and there are consequences. A 10km makes sense, steady for 4km, hit optimum pace to 7km then give it horns to the finish!

Once the gun went, there was the obligatory battling with walkers and joggers who had pushed to the front. By the time we got off the grass and onto the tar thankfully we had cleared them. There were some serious looking athletes and those pesky juniors that have endless pace, and I got sucked into that early pace. Then came the first panic. My watch hit 4:00 and there was no sign of the 1 km mark. But already I was breathing quite heavily. At 8 minutes so 2 km mark. My  Nike+ foot sensor is optimized for my easy training pace of around 4:55-5:00 min/km so it under measures at race pace so that was no use. The water point was coming up and that was supposed to be halfway but I check the time, 9:57 as I pass through. Now I'm getting tired and double my time is 19:54, surely not.

I soldiered on but the one glimmer of hope was that I still hadn't lost sight of the lead bike. It was starting to get further and further away but after 12 minutes I could see it at a bend in the corner of my eye. At 15 minutes I see the Sportsman's Warehouse balloons for the changeover point and I can here the announcer calling the team numbers. So close. As I'm about to hit the grass with the finish in sight, my clock hits 17:00. Another 'surely not' moment. I stride to the finish, I can hear my dad cheer me on, see my wife pull out of the change over area, hand her the baton and stop my clock.

17:49!

No freaking way!!!!! My first instinct is not to celebrate but to question the route. It must be short surely, must be. I play this silly game in my head until the end of the race. My father ran the last leg. He was recovering from a cold so didn't go all out but planned to hit 4:00 min/km and then finish strong. His experienced legs can dial a pace almost at will and sure enough he finished in 19:30, with no qualms about the distance.

So an new PB. I'm still over the moon. A 1:36 improvement and managing 3:34 pace over 5km is something I would not have imagined in February, never mind June last year. I think it might have just been once of those days, 1) weather was perfect 2) it was as flat as a pancake 3) the pace was hot at the start and I got into the mix and just hung on.

Of course I have been doing a lot of hard training and it's giving back now. My average for the last 7 weeks since the week of Wally Hayward and Jackie Melker has been 46km, with weekly totals ranging from 41 km to 51 km. That has been a mix of speedwork (intervals and tempo sessions) on Tuesday, hills on Thursday and 12-16 km long runs on Sunday. So while for me it has been conditioning and preparing my body for the rigours of the marathon training that is still to come, another way to look at it is that I have been doing an intensive 8 week 10km program like the sort you would find on Runner's World. Indeed I'm doing a 10km race on Saturday and this is now the 8th week since that double header week.

I'm looking forward to Saturday's race and like the last two races I'm going to give it my all and just let the legs go. Then I have another two weeks before I start focussing on the marathon from the 16th July.

So what's my correct training pace?

Something that I never really grasped is what pace to train at. There are of course so many training types, I'm doing short intervals, long intervals, fartleks, tempo workouts, hill repeats, easy runs and long runs. Each of these has a purpose and must therefore  be done purposefully and at the right effort. I guess the easiest way is to drop the pace constraint and to go by effort. Take that a step further and use heart rate. But I hate running with a heart rate monitor. Scratch that detest it. There's something about having that darn belt around my chest, it irritates me, I'm constantly adjusting it...anyway I digress.

My solution was to just go to a running pace calculator, like this great one from Runner's World that even does race predictions! So I've just run a race, recently the Jackie Mekler 10km in 42:38 and it gives me the following output under training pace:

• 5:16 min/km Easy run training pace
• 4:23 min/km Tempo run training pace
• 3:57 min/km Maximum oxygen training pace
• 3:39 min/km Speed form training pace
• 5:16-5:57 min/km Long run training pace
• 3:15 min/800m Yasso 800s training pace

Great! So on Monday, Tuesday on whenever I head out again I do my tempo at 4:23 min/km, my easy run at 5:16 and my LSD no faster than 5:16 but no slower than 5:57 min/km. Then the following week I do some 400m reps on the track at 87s per 400. Easy?

But what am I actually doing? I never really thought that all I'm doing is maintaining 42:38 form but surely that's not what I want? But if I'm training at paces computed from that as my most recent race time surely that's what I'm doing? It's like the training pace here is the end goal and not a journey when using the race pace method and that seems a bit wrong. I understand the logic that it's a good measure of what I'm capable of, particularly when shooting for a new distance. I'm training for my first marathon, so a good estimation of what I'm capable could be what my times now predict. So using my 42:38 PB run a month ago, I get an estimation of 3:16:06. Using my half-marathon PB of 1:35:01 ran four days before that 10km, I get a marathon prediction of 3:18:06. Two weeks later I ran a 5km, albeit one as flat as a pancake in 19:25, and that predicts 3:05:53!

Here's the thing though, surely this method predicts current capability with a few assumptions, the most obvious to me being you realistically plan to run the predicted distance on a route profile similar to that of the input race result? My 5km time is a useless barometer for Soweto Marathon, but might be a good indicator for a race like Slow Mag, which is also reasonably flat. However the other assumption is that you are fit and ready to run the predicted race NOW. I can tell you now I know I can't run a 32km race at whatever pace my 10km PB would extrapolate to, never mind a marathon. Heck I think I would blow out if trying to do 25km at a hard effort.

This has been weighing on my mind as my different PBs run within two weeks of each other predict times 13 minutes wide for the marathon, but also because I feel I ought to train with a goal in mind and my effort in training should reflect that. I'm am heading into the great unknown so how I do logically plan for that. I have a half marathon scheduled for 29th September, roughly a month before Soweto and that will obviously be a good gauge of what I will be able to achieve. But here's my thing, if I train at 42:38 for a 10km determined pace, am I selling myself short. I have over 5 months to go till Soweto. A lot can change and I will inevitably, judging by my progress in the first half of 2012, be fitter and faster come 4 November. Surely I want to get faster, not maintain the status quo?

When I decided to train for a half marathon I consulted a few people on what I should aim for. The first question was always, 'What have you run?'. At the time it was 48 flat for 10km. I thought of going for 1:40 but guys said that a 1:45 would be more realistically based on my 10km PB. I did a 10km, the Deloitte race in the first week of my program to get a feel for race pace since my 10km PB was from November 2011, and out of nowhere ran 45:44. It was hard, I walked a lot, I was spent, butsuddenly I was in 1:40 territory. As a relative novice, I had no control of pace and actually ended up inadvertently running by feel, ie getting the workout wrong 90% of the time. So easy for me was simply being able to hold a conversation. Tempo I just ran hard, intervals I went all out. As the weeks progressed, I was on a 10 week program, I noticed that interval and tempo workouts, at the same rate of perceived effort were getting faster with no extra work on my part. I ran 1:38:42 and then two weeks later ran 1:35:01. That second half-marathon was at a faster pace than I managed over my 45:44 10km.

Now surely if I had restricted myself to training paces for a 45:44 10km, I never would have managed a 1:35 half marathon? Or a 42:38 10km? Or a 19:25 5km? I would have condition myself for a 1:40:54 half-marathon and a 21:57 5km, hypothetically speaking.

I'm definitely leaning towards a feel based approach with a bit of mathematical prediction thrown in. For example I have four races I am focusing on leading up to Soweto, a 10km each in June, July and August and the half in September. For the 10km races I hope to take a minute off my PB each time, route, weather, health, and the alignment of the stars permitting, which would put me into sub 40 minute territory (crikey!) and a realistical shot at a sub 90 minute half marathon, in turn an opportunity for a fast debut marathon, 3:05 to 3:10 maybe, if everything is perfect on the day (I'll take a 3:30 any day!)

So how do I train for that? I could repeat the exercise above and put in a 40:00 target 10km. But the speed form pace is a blinding 3:26 and I know that is probably to hot for me right now to hit consistently over 4,5,6 up to 10 reps. I can go all out and nail it first time but I would be bushed! What I think is logical and something I'm trying to do, is to have an end goal in mind for training pace I should hit. For example I like that the Yasso 800 is tried and tested so I should be able to do 10 of those at whatever pace I aim for, and if I have done my tempos, fartleks and long run, that together should work. But the goal should be just that, the end goal. The 10x Yasso 800s are usually done just before the taper. My current pace should be a springboard to that end goal, which leads into the foot race. So right now a 4:23 tempo and 3:39 speed form should be at my 80% and 85-90% effort, but like how we increase mileage weekly to improve stamina, I should be able to push a little harder in later weeks so that 80% becomes 4:20, 4:17, 4:14 and down to 4:07 by October and equally 85-90% becomes 3:35, 3:31 down to 3:26.

So a bottom end based on current ability and a top end based on desired, but realistic ability, bridged by running on feel and listening to the body? Well that's the theory anyway.

Going to Soweto...

Monday was the beginning of the low and arduous journey to the Soweto Marathon, my first attempt at the distance. If you had spoken to me this time last year, it would have been the last thing on my mind. How quickly things change. I have gone from lazy though active in that I walk every where and am generally fidgety, drinking more than I should and eating very badly, to running 5-6 times a week and following a healthy eating plan, in a little under 12 months. I've gone from huffing and puffing through a 10km in 51:19 to powering through a half marathon in 1:35, and almost smelling that magical (for me at least), 40:XX or even 39:XX for a 10km. But that is for another time! Right now there is a bigger fish to fry that I approach with great excitement and trepidation...in equal measure.

Soweto Marathon route profile (image courtesy of RunnersGuide.co.za)

The plan is simple. No crash course program, but a long and methodical program that aims to condition my still young legs, both in a biological and running sense, to the rigours and toughness required to run the haloed 42.2 km distance, or 26.2 miles in archaic terminology! You can do the maths, 14 May 2012 is the start date, 4 November 2012 is the end date, a monumental 25 weeks. Thus no stone will remained unturned, and there is plenty of time for assessment and goal setting. At this point I'm not concerned about a target time/pace though I have, like I did with the half marathon, thought about a best case, a middling case and 'definitely need to beat this' case scenarios! This is big stuff though and the concept of running for 42.2 km still bends my mind in ways that no other physical endeavour has.

Is it too much too soon?

Will I hit the wall?

Am I strong enough?

Questions. Questions.

Anyway I do digress.

This is the summary of what my program entails. It's a five phase program and in a classical sense only 19 of the 25 weeks are proper marathon training with the first six weeks being base building. So it's just 1-3 weeks longer than regular 16-18 week programs.

• Phase 1 Base Building (6 weeks). This will entail mostly easy runs and strides to lay down the endurance base necessary for the subsequent phases. 
• Phase II: Repetitions (6 weeks). This comprise fast track repetitions (200m to 400m) on Tuesdays.  
• Phase III: Intervals (6 weeks). This phase focuses on endurance speed sessions of 800m, 1000m, and 1200m on Tuesdays. These are high intensity sessions of no less than 3 minutes whose aim is to condition your leg muscles to run hard for longer periods.
• Phase IV: Threshold training (4 weeks). This is the final sharpening phase in which you’ll run 800m or 1000m at an intense 5km pace for peak performance.
• Phase V: Taper (3 weeks). This phase involves structured cutting back of both mileage and intensity to enable the body to recover and rebuild glycogen stores.

All of that of course involves tempo workouts, long runs and adequate recovery runs. I'll be doing assessment races at the end of each phase, 10km for Phase I-III and a half marathon in Phase IV (probably the City2City) to ensure I'm on the right track. Sometime in phase IV I will have an idea of what a realistic aim should be. I've played with the time predictors, noted the values but ultimately my body and mind (and the coach) will be the final judge of what I'll set out to do when, injuries and health permitting, I'm at the start line.

'Twas the season of the PB

As I head into off season/base training I can reflect on what has been the best and most enjoyably period of running in my life. I started the year as a disgruntled runner. I had a 48:00 10km to my name but just couldn't see where any improvements would come from. After some goal setting, nearly three months later targets are getting crossed off, and the improvements are coming thick and fast. Good times! After an awesome run at Wally Hayward, crossing off the first of my goals to run a sub 1:40 half marathon, I was ready to my feet up, but also start looking ahead for the rest of the year. So I got myself a coach. And who better than my father. He is very experienced having started a club when he was in London and now at UNISA. He is a fantastic runner with many many marathons to his name. Even in his mid 50s continues run amazing time, running a 1:24 half marathon as recently as last year. At his peak he was doing a 32 min 10km, a 70 min half and has a 2:30 marathon PB. I'm in good hands.

My first act as a coached athlete was however to ignore the advice of the coach. Though I ran pretty hard on Tuesday, I entered a 10km race in Pretoria, aiming to cross the first of my 2012 goals, to run a sub 45 10km. My logic was 2-fold. I was still on a high from the Wally Hayward. Also, the SA race calendar is very much centered around Comrades, so the runners taper in the month of May, the race calendar winds down. Likewise in June as the runners recover from completing one of the toughest road races in the world the calendar reflects this. The would be not be another serious opportunity to have a crack it.

So on Saturday morning I set of to Thaba Tshwane to do the 10km at the Jackie Mekler Memorial Race. The route was supposedly flat with a couple of undulations. It was freezing and the race was an earlier start than I have been used to, with 25km setting off at 6 AM and the 10 and 5 km races going 15 minutes later. To cut to the chase, after a steady first kilometre in around 4:40, I set of and just went as quick as my tired legs would take me. Racing so soon after the half was indeed risky. I could feel it on the climbs but I kept my splits constant, going through 5km in 21:15. I slowed a bit in the seconds half. By 8km I was really struggling but dug in enough to finish the race in unofficially a smashing new PB of 42:41 42:38. That's three minutes better than my previous best, and over 5 minutes quicker than what I started with in the new year.

Approaching the finish at the Jackie Mekler Memorial 10km on the way to a 42:41 42:38 PB

At the finish. Tough race but job well done!

The risk paid off and it meas I have managed to cross of two of my three 2012 goals. I'm really pleased that both were done comprehensively. Now I can focus my attention fully on training for the Soweto Marathon on the 4th November. The coach is going to put me on a 25 week plan starting on Monday beginning with six weeks of base building. The plan with gradually increase my speed through short and long intervals, bring in tempo pace, increase my stamina and end with three weeks of tapering. It's going to be long, it's going to be brutal but I'm excited. For now I'm going to reflect on an awesome 10 and a bit weeks where I learnt a lot about being runner, the value of having and sticking to a plan, and then reaping the rewards.

Highlights

• Taking 2:16 off my 10km at the Deloitte Pretoria 10km on 25th February to finish in 45:44 (4:35 min/km pace), a good omen
• Finishing my first half marathon at the Slow Mag race in Benoni in 1:38:42 (4:41 min/km pace)
• Improving my half marathon time by 3:4941 to finish unofficially in 1:34:53 1:35:01 (4:2930 min/km pace) and breaking (just about) equalling the 4:30 min/km average over race distance
• Finally breaking 45 min for 10km and taking 3:03 3:06 off my previous best to finish the Jackie Mekler Memorial in 42:41 42:38 (4:16 min/km pace)

There's a first time for everything: Time to taper

I have finally got to the last week of my 10 week half marathon training program and it's time to taper. It dawned on me that this is the first time I have ever had a proper program and followed it through (almost) to the end. Okay so I kinda cheated by going hard two Sundays ago and doing a full 21.1 instead of the planned 19, and racing the second half, but this past week I took it easier than I had planned. I did a very easy 6km run on Tuesday and instead of the scheduled track workout I went on the road and did a fartlek session  and again didn't go all out. By the weekend I was feeling refreshed and did 6km on Saturday with a focus on hills and pushed hard on a 2km incline (at 4:30 pace) in the middle of the route. I cut my Sunday run from 15km to 11km and again added 2.5 km of hills split into a 1.5km climb from about 4.5km and a 1km climb at 8km. That is one thing I have been lazy with, hill training, but I still felt good pushing a bit, but it's something I have to start fitting into my workouts.

This week is a no nonsense week. a couple of easy 6s on Tuesday and Saturday, sandwiching a few 400m repeats on the track on Thursday. There is a bit of moisture in the air, so hopefully it holds out otherwise I will repeat the fartlek from last week just to get my legs turning. Then either on the Sunday or the Monday I will do a very easy 5km jog and then it is race day on Tuesday, the one I have been training for all along. I must say while I'm not feeling fatigued, I can feel that I have put in 334km since 18 February. Not since school days where I was doing 3 sessions a week have I stuck so resolutely to a plan. The 149km I put in last month was easily the most I have ever done but by the end of this month I will have done another 160. The most mileage I had put in since I started running again in June was 78 in November last year, and I doubt I have ever put in that much at any other time in my life so this is very new territory for me. I'm really just looking forward to slowing down, cutting down the kays and conserving my energy for an all out effort on the 1st.

While I really enjoyed the Slowmag and was surprised with how comfortably I cleared 1:40 (official time was 1:38:42) after initially shooting for 1:45 when I started training, I'm now slightly confused as to how I should approach the Wally Hayward. The first consideration is that the route is a bit tougher. Slowmag was relatively flat with a bit of an incline between 13.5 and 14.5km. The Wally Hayward has what is described in Runnersguide.co.za as "the slow and poisonous climb over the highway" from about 6km and it's a gradual climb but you never really stop until about 11km. Then there is the dreaded and famed Hakkin Hill at the end which I still remember from doing the 10km in 2006! Secondly as I said earlier, my pace for the Slowmag, ~49:20 for the first 10km and the same time for the following 11km, was perfect but a plan I stumbled upon by accident since I had begun with a training run in mind. Now do I push a little harder here maybe aiming for a very doable 47:30-48:00 for the first 10? Hakkin Hill expected, the last 10 for Wally actually look easier than Slowmag with a predominantly downhill path so 4:25 pace  as I managed at Slowmag for the remainder of the race is a possibility and I could be flirting with a good PB of between 1:36 and 1:37. But then again, with the slightly more challenging beginning, I might not have as much in reserve as I had a Slowmag to effectively run a PB for the last 10km (guesstimated about 44:15 for the last 10km).. By going out at 5:20 for the first 3km at Slowmag and then easing into my stride to only break the 5:00/km average pace only at 9km, allowed me to really go for it in the second half.


Decisions. Decisions.


Ultimately I just want a great run and know that If I enjoy myself and race intelligently, then a good time for the course will follow.

Inspirations

Thousands of runners braved the 2012 Two Oceans Half and Ultra Marathons this past weekend. It must be said that the weather was far from ideal. I was down in Cape Town for a wedding and was lucky enough to be in Muizenberg for the weekend. On  Saturday morning I laced up my shoes and my wife and I went out for a run. We only did about 8km and it was hellish; at one stage I was blown into road by a sudden gust of wind. It was icy cold and for that short 58 minute run we were drenched.

What struck me however was the determination of those braving the race. While passing through Muizenberg the road marking there were 14, 15 and 16 km, so still a long long way to go. Yet these runners were going for it, giving their all.

Sights on my runs 1

Last year I was down in Durban to support a family friend and my fathers at the big ones, the Comrades. My only experience of this arduous race has always been from the comfort of my armchair and this time we drove along the route and picked a point roughly 65 km into the race where it would be easy to support. The concept of even running that far has never crossed my mind but that day, seeing two people I personally, even after what had gone before, continuing to push themselves still, with another 'half marathon' to go was inspiring.

I had been an on and off runner up to that stage. In school I did athletics and cross country so I was fit and busy but I once hit varsity and lost that structured extra mural school set-up I grew lazier and lazier. In 2005 I started again just running around the WITS University Campus but a combination of laziness, partying and slow improvements meant I was done with the sport again. I would go through spurts but nothing lasting more than 2 or 3 weeks.

It is weird in a way because my family is quite active and my father in particular is a seasoned runner with the highlight of his career a three year sequence in London with 2:52 and 2:45 performances sandwiched by a stunning 2:30 in 1997, good enough for a top 150 placing in one of the biggest races in the world. But perhaps that was it. I never wanted to emulate that and the more people remarked how I was 'blessed' with my father's 'made for running' physique, I rebelled even more. My burst of running always took one of two paths. Either I would just happily plod along running as I felt like it not really pushing myself and getting bored. Other times I would put together incredibly unrealistic demands and expectations and suffer from burn out. The end result was the same; the running gear gathering dust.

Last winter however something stirred. I think it was perhaps seeing my father more humanized. For a 55 year old man he is in incredible condition and still running some fantastic times. His 10 km times for example still blow mine away and I could never keep with him doing intervals on the track! I have very vivid memories of him streaking down the Mall in 1997, with Buckingham Palace to our left and cheering him own as he majestically strode to that remarkable personal best at the princely age of 40. Seeing him at Camperdown however, there was a lot less of that incredible machine precision from 14 years earlier, just a really fit man, who has really taken care of himself, doing well at one of the toughest road races in the world. For the first time ever, I could just about see myself in his shoes.

Ten months later I am three weeks away from doing my first of hopefully many half marathons. For the first time since my school days, I have set reasonable goals and stuck to an achievable training program. While I would like to run between 1:40 and 1:45 on the 1st May, I now understand the dynamics of running a bit more and fully understand that most of all I have to go out there and just enjoy myself. With that attitude and with the right training behind me, the times will come.

From then on the sky is the limit, full marathons, Two Oceans, Comrades? With no pressure I am certain anything is possible with my two feet.

A new dawn.