Goals For 2015: End Evaluation

Fa la la la laaaaa…. Merry Christmas everybody, what better time to evaluaty my goals for 2015.
3 months ago my quarterly evaluation could be better, 6 months ago my halfyear evaluation wasn’t all that better, let’s see what the end evaluation is…

(Three quarters failed to be written up, so it’s a bigger leap than last posts…)

2 ultra distances
From one I was certain: my 6h race I did in July.
This was one of my major goals for 2015 and it went … well enough (click the link for an elaborate review.

The plan was doing another ultra somewhere near december, but starting from mid November sickness and lack of motivation got the better of me, so it seemed for a while I wouldn’t be running another ultra soon.
But suddenly an event called ‘Warmathon’ appeared, this was 5h of running in every province’s capital.
I wanted to join in Brugge, but did’t know my current form… However I wanted to run the full 5h, even though I decided to take on a slow pace. So last monday I ran about 52km (See Strava). I plan to dedicate a full post to this one in the near future…

+2500km of running

Hooray, according to Endomondo I have now 2646km (~1644 miles), so not only did I make it, I feel like I’ve crushed it.
Very very happy with my progress across the years.

Month Overview of 2015

Year overview Endomondo

 

 

Break distance record (currently ~57km)

July 11 I ran the 6h of Aalter and ran the furthest and longest time I ever did for now.
Separate post here with all the details.
Still very proud of this achievement!

Break duration record (currently 5:51)
See above 🙂

Nice-to-haves:

  • PB on the 5k  Did not run any 5k race
  • PB on the 10k Did not run any 10k race
  • Marathon under 3:20  Nope, but PB’ed (see below)
  • Run a nice trail just to enjoy the scenery (chance is, I’ll already get this at the end of January)

I did the last one with Trail Du Mont and did it again with Trail Des Fantomes in August.

Not a goal, but notable:

PB Marathon: ~3::23 at the end Of October with my brother.

PB Half Marathon ~1:30 at the end Of October with my brother.

End thoughts:

Although I always think I don’t run a lot of races, it seems that my 2015 was filled with races I’lll remember for a very long time!
Running-wise it was DEFINITELY a great year.
Still thinking about the 2016 goals, so it could be they only get written up after New Year…

Did you achieve (almost) everything you wanted to achieve in 2015?
Why (not)?
Be sure to link me up in the comments!!

My Lactic Acid Test

About 2 years ago I went running on a treadmill and had my ear pricked every 3 minutes.
What I learned there was that my base could be a lot better and that the shape I was in at that time did not offer a good breeding ground to do a sub 3:30 marathon.

I proved the advice wrong (barely), yet I feel I could not have achieved it without the test itself.
Running on heart rate is golden for me, it gives me a sense of security and supports me on a day-to-day basis.

About 2 months ago I went for an update, this time “in the field” (on a track is more correct).

The general idea was the same: run at a specific intensity, pause, prick some blood, put down the timings and go running at a somewhat heavier intensity.
Difference was at treadmill they crank up the speed, here I needed to watch my heart rate constantly.

So I managed 6 times 2k and shortly after that I had to push it all out over 600m to find my max HR.

For the number minded people: a comparison. My take on these numbers are underneath.

2013 2015
Recovery 134-143 <140
Z1 144-155 140-155
Z2 156-161 155-162
Z3 162-167 162-169
Z4 168-173 16-17.5km/h*
Z5 174-182 >17.5km/h*
Anaerobic threshold 168 @ 14.2km/h 168 @ 15.15km/h
Max HR 182 @ 16.8km/h 183 @ unknown (didn’t press my Garmin button properly)

* The 2 tests were with a different firm, the second one opts to only give speeds at intensity levels as HR can fluctuate too much in their opinion.

So after 2 years it turned out that:

  • The last year or so I did my long runs too slow
  • My speed really picked up
  • I have consistent zones once above my threshold.
  • There is still room for improvement on my total capacity, which means I should be able to get even faster.

Good times coming 🙂

Any of you ever did some test like this?
Did you think it upped your trainings?