Saturday - 15 km easy

An easy 15 km around Manly this morning, bumping into Ben within the first few hundred metres, meaning I had company for the next 10 km or so. A lovely morning, just happy to be out there. 4:45’s at 145 bpm.

Wednesday - 15 km easy + hill sprints

I was really on struggle street this morning, but at least I wasn’t alone. I ended up bumping into and running with Ian and Sam - the latter feeling much the same as myself. Having the company certainly helped us both get through it. Just sore from yesterday, which I guess is understandable. 15 km in 4:46’s at 140 bpm. Finished off with hill sprints - these actually felt great, and I can see some noticeable improvement from the last few weeks, which is encouraging.

Tuesday - 5 x 1 km (off 3’)

My confidence was extremely low today after a few days of feeling terrible, so the fact that I even showed up was a bonus. I met Dave at the track at 6 am for a repeat of last week's session. My plan was to drop the level of perceived effort slightly, as I was still mentally scarred from last week. In the end, the intensity was slightly easier, and the reps were slightly faster - 3:17, 3:22, 3:26, 3:28 and 3:27. So all-in-all, a somewhat positive session - faster than last week, but still some way to go to get back to peak fitness. Hopefully a drop in volume of strength training will leave me a bit more refreshed for the speedwork. Glad Dave was there this morning, as I don’t know if I would have done it without him there. But as always, really glad I got through it this morning. That should set me up well now moving forward over that hurdle. With a warm-up and cool-down, I got about 14 km all up.

Saturday - 16 km with middle 20’ at threshold

I went into today’s session with very tired legs following a very hard week of training. Thought that this would be a better option than parkrun, as this way I could control the effort to better degree. Pretty ordinary pace-wise, only managing 5.46 km at 3:40’s (175 bpm) for the 20 minute effort, but I’m just happy to get through it and set a fresh marker to improve on I nthe following weeks. The 16 km felt like a long way.

Thursday - 4 x (90”, [60” jog], 60”, [30” jog], 30”) (off 2’)

Same session as last Thursday, but slightly quicker this week - despite a cold. Ran these in the bike lane parallel to the beach, starting out the front of Manly LSC. Distances were 490 m, 320 m, 160 m, 480 m, 310 m, 160 m, 470 m, 300 m, 150 m, 460 m, 310 m and 160 m. Averaged 3:09.25, 3:14.25, and 3:11’s for the 90, 60 and 30 second efforts, respectively (averaging 3:11’s for the the entire session). So three seconds per kilometre faster than last week, a solid improvement (but I’ve still got some way to go). Cooled down along the beachfront at probably the slowest pace I’ve ever run for just over 13 km all up.

Wednesday - 15 km easy + hill sprints

An easy 15 kms on very tired legs. I had Ben for company the entire way, with brief appearances by Ian, Erika and Darren along the way. Just ran the usual Shelly-Fairlight loop. 4:47’s at 141 bpm, before finishing off with some hill sprints at Queenscliff headland.

Tuesday - 5 x 1 km (off 3’)

That was brutal this morning. Met Dave at the track at 6am for some 1 km reps. Did these differently than usual, with the emphasis on quality over quantity - evident by the smaller than usual number of reps, and the generous 3 minutes rest between reps. But believe me, this doesn’t make it any easier at all. In fact, this was the hardest session that I’ve done in a long time. Pace was nothing special by any means, but the effort was well and truly there. Times were 3:18, 3:24, 3:26, 3:28 and 3:28. Got to get these back down to low 3’s in the future, but hopefully sessions like these will help that happen. A slow cool-down for just under 13 km all up.