Ah.... the tricky 3rd week. Time to introduce speed work. Two weeks of relative easy running and finally we’re off to start running at pace. So what happened this week.... well a pretty standard nothing to write home about 45 minute easy pace run came and went without any drama. That stood aside as Thursday rolled round. 51 minutes, speed repeats. After a nice 15 minute easy warm up. Came 6x 1 minute at 1 minute faster than goal pace. Which was ok, but I was glad to see the back of it after 6 repeats. But the killer was next which was 6x 30 seconds at TWO minutes faster than goal pace (without just sprinting!) Proved a real challenge and pushed my ability to both run at night, check for ice on the pavement (it’s still pretty chilly here) and checking my watch to make sure I hit the target pace. The 15 minute cool down was much required and calmed me right down into a relaxing night and a good sleep. But after speed, must come progression. So Saturday morning I was up early to get through a Progression run. Progression runs are a type of speed work. Where you run at below goal pace for a time and then run over goal pace for a time. The 10 minutes at 1 minute above goal was brutal. Not helped by the fact that I took the wrong run and ended up running on boggy grass making it tougher to run at any pace. I got through it, but a lie down at my parents house was needed as well as a bacon sandwich!
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Speed and Progression. The tricky 3rd week.
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Ah.... the tricky 3rd week. Time to introduce speed work. Two weeks of relative easy running and finally we’re off to start running at pace. So what happened this week.... well a pretty standard nothing to write home about 45 minute easy pace run came and went without any drama. That stood aside as Thursday rolled round. 51 minutes, speed repeats. After a nice 15 minute easy warm up. Came 6x 1 minute at 1 minute faster than goal pace. Which was ok, but I was glad to see the back of it after 6 repeats. But the killer was next which was 6x 30 seconds at TWO minutes faster than goal pace (without just sprinting!) Proved a real challenge and pushed my ability to both run at night, check for ice on the pavement (it’s still pretty chilly here) and checking my watch to make sure I hit the target pace. The 15 minute cool down was much required and calmed me right down into a relaxing night and a good sleep. But after speed, must come progression. So Saturday morning I was up early to get through a Progression run. Progression runs are a type of speed work. Where you run at below goal pace for a time and then run over goal pace for a time. The 10 minutes at 1 minute above goal was brutal. Not helped by the fact that I took the wrong run and ended up running on boggy grass making it tougher to run at any pace. I got through it, but a lie down at my parents house was needed as well as a bacon sandwich!