End of good week

Was in for an extra massage / ART work today. This has been the biggest week that I've had by far in a long time. In addition to the three weight sessions, we started Zone 3 (read fast) workouts this week. The extra work with Paula was a really good idea.

It's clear that I'll need to work in a lot more stretching in the next few weeks as things continue to ramp up leading to the Army 1/2 next month and the Toronto marathon in October. This week was more of challenge to allocate enough time for stretching.

This was also a real break though week. Both the Tuesday Zone 3 run and the Thursday long Zone 2 run were the best I've had in quite a while. For the zone 3 I was suppose to be only hitting 4:25 min/k for the 5 minutes at the top of the zone. As I went along I got faster and faster eventually hitting 4:08 min/k for the last of the four sets. Thursday had similar good results. I hit my target 5:00 min/k for the 1st 25 min section but then was able to run under 5 (4:48 and 4:51) for the remaining sections.

Today is a rest day and that's okay with me. Tomorrow I have my long run (2:45) which I'll do the 1st 16k with Jim. I'm still trying to get my zone 1 pace way down to get my aerobic threshold where I went it. For the 2 races I want to ensure that a 5:00 min/k pace is squarely in zone 1. This weeks workouts have given me much better confidence that things are falling into place.

Random observations

Last week was a good week from several perspectives.

I worked hard at keeping my pace slow as planned to ensure that my aerobic threshold comes back to where it was as soon as possible. It was off due to being sick and traveling for the most part.

Keeping the pace slow reminded me how it should feel when you're in the right zone. This is easy to forget and usually results in me running too fast. I don't have to be in the top of my zone 1. The bottom and the middle are okay places as well. Go figure.

I think the timing of the rest week was pretty much ideal as well. I need the rest and the chance to do my workouts when I was fully rested. It's easy to end up doing the workouts not fully rested.

Anyway, more later ....

Week of August 20th - 24th

This weeks batch of runs ....

1. Rest week.
2. Best week I've had in a long time. No sinus / allergy issues. Diet was good.
3. Kept the paces reasonable all week and didn't try and overdue it.

Day	Date	Total Time	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Comments
Wednesday	AUG 20	40	11.5	142	Ran with the group but kept the HR as low as possible. Felt really good during this run.
Thursday	21	45	10.8	140	Ran from Peak out along Castle Frank to Terry Fox and back. Somewhat dehydrated during this run hence I felt the heart rate was higher than it ideal.
Friday	22	28	9.4	126	Ran with Jo-Anne at lunchtime downtown. Very relaxed run. Finished with the stairs behind parliament.
Saturday	23	150	10.9	141	Nutrition was good before the run. Had 2 clif bars at 5:30 but that seamed to do the trick. 1x600 ml bottle for the 1st 90 and 1 more bottle for the last 60.
(1st 90)		89	5:35	136	Ran with Jim from his place @ 6:50 AM Pace was very comfortable. No places to refill the bottles on this route.
(last 60)		101	5:18	147	This section had a lot of downhill as I headed down the transitway to the river. Felt good throughout the last hour. Interesting however, that my HR was so high. Probably dehydrated in this section.
Sunday	24	45	5:46	133	Ran in Combermere. The route was equivalent to running in the Gatineau's. Felt sluggish during the run probably due to the big dinner the night before and the lack of any kind of warmup on the route. The route started straight uphill. No other options for this route.

Last weeks runs

*** General Notes

1. Due to some scheduling
conflicts and thunderstorms when I was available on Sunday and Tuesday, I
shifted my weekday runs by 1 day last week starting with the long run on
Sunday which I did Monday.

2. In general, after Tuesday
felt a little off for the rest of the week. In thinks it case of allergies kicking in.
I was still able to run just more clogged up in the sinus cavity than
anything.

3. Last nights run was the
best run I've had in a long time. This is in terms of how I felt and how I perceived the effort.
This bodes well.

Day	Date	Total Time	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Comments
Monday	AUG 11	150	10.7	142	Trying to run by feel
Tuesday	12	36	9.6	128	Easy ran with a group at the running room which forced me to keep it really slow. Good recovery run. Shorter than planned total run distance.
Wednesday	13	1:36	4:40-4:49 for each of the 1k splits.		Gatineau Park for my 5x1k hills -- Oy Kept the distance at 1k as that was what I had been doing on Corkstown Road. I really challenged myself on this run. Going to Gatineau Park was good.
Thursday	13	0			Did Strength & Conditioning but did not run. This was a case of listening to my body which was saying not too push it that day.
Friday	14	90			Did my 60' in z2/ 30' Z1 This was interesting as I tried very much to run by feel. I was targeting a long fast steady run for the 60' in zone 2 but overshot. It was good on the one hand in that pace was challenging but doable. Bad on the either hand in that it definitely took longer to fully recover from the run.
		30	4:54	151	1st half of 60' Z2
		30	4:51	164	2nd half of 60' Z2
Saturday	15	75	10.7	142	This was a great run and felt really good.
Sunday	16	95	11.0	148	Ran with a Pat along the river. The overall speed was a faster than planned. Difficult to keep it slow enough. Legs felt stiff on this run probably still from Friday's effort. Ran very early (6:30 AM) as well.
Monday	17				Recovery Day
Tuesday	18	40	11.0	138	This was the best run I've had in ages. :) Did a bit of an experiment. Kept the hard rate solidly under 140 for the whole run. Garmin takes a couple of minutes to properly lock in the HR hence the avg number slightly higher than what it was in reality during the run. Didn't look at the speed until the end of the run. This run felt that I could go on like this forever.