Tag: training

May 1, 2015

Bye April…

Goodbye April, helly May.

April has been kind to me. The weather didn’t really cooperate, but the mileage did go up!
Spring has arrived here for over a month, sadly it doesn’t show, nor by temperature, nor by hours of sunshine and especially not by a nice spring breeze.

April had one good week – weatherwise – which I took with both hands to start commuting by run.
This is the main reason I was able to build up my mileage a lot!

Strava overview April

I managed to get a whopping 306km!
This is more than January+February or February+March (February was not good to me…)

It’s also my 2nd best month ever since I started running March 2013. Only September 2013 does better with 324km.

My goal for 2015 of running 2500km is suddenly a lot more into reach than it was one month ago.

So how was your april month?
Managed to get the desired distance? Did any nice races?

April 24, 2015

100k In One Week!

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The commuting on foot has started last week and because of all the good weather and the “hey-it’s-new” spirit I added some extra mileage and everyday and just like that something happened that I have been dreaming of for a while now: the 100km in one week came in sight.

After Friday I was already at ~65k and I knew that Saturday I was running at least 25k at the HMS Vindictive Memorial Run. This meant coming short 10k in total.

Option 1 was adding an extra 10k to the Memorial Run.
Option 2 was running on Sunday.

As I started feeling that my body needed some rest, option 2 was soon out of the window, which meant I laced up an hour early for my race and headed out. The start was in my hometown, so I could run to the start point to get my bib.
Unfortunately, there was a queue at the bib-stand, which meant I still needed 2k after the 25k from the race.
Luckily there was an opportunity at the end to add an extra loop to my run, which I did and just like that I got to 100k in one week!

Strava proof of my 100k week 🙂

So Happy 🙂

I felt more tired this week, so it’s clear my body needs adapting to higher mileage weeks, but I really would like to run some more weeks like this before I tackle another ultra…

How much do you run a week?
Do you have a “dream” distance you’d like to get to?

April 14, 2015

Golden legs?

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Not even a week after writing down I keep track of my Training PB’s, I get to adjust one.

My previous record in 2015 of 90 minutes in Zone 1 dates to only 2 weeks back, which made it my all time training PB as well.
It was the same pace as the previous one, but my heart rate was a tad lower.

See it at Endomondo or Strava.

Now, my avg heart rate was the same, my percentage in zone 2 is higher (8vs13%), but I crushed my PB with 12s/km.
That’s amazing if I may say so myself. (Endomondo / Strava)

I started running and couldn’t believe my Garmin.
First 3km were fast (<5min/km), but usually my pace drops a bit after that distance. But now I managed to keep up with it all the way through.

The weather was perfect though: sunny, but not too hot. Wind to cool down, but not interfering with my speed. And since it’s a vacation period in Belgium, there were a lot of tourists at the dike near the sea (my usual running spot), which caused enough diversion to keep me mentally occupied.

All in all, a very good run was had 😀

April 8, 2015

Registering Training PB’s

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My race schedule is fairly empty most of the times.
I run 2-3 big races a year and all my other races usually get decided very close to when they take place (and seldom are consider a “giving-it-all” thing). So in order to keep myself motivated I started taking note of my training PB’s.

It’s handy to see at a glance what my “All Time Training PB”, “2014 Training PB” or “2015 Training PB” is.
At times I don’t really feel fast or strong in the legs and it’s always good to have a reference at those times.

That’s why I choose to have a ‘all time’ but also ‘this year’. It’s not really motivating with a super day of training.

Training PB’s Evernote

I use Evernote for this, in a separate notebook. Keeps it clean and easy accessible.
It’s always fun if I break a training PB. Gives me a small runner’s high 😀

Do you keep your training PB’s? Helps it motivate you as well?

March 23, 2015

Back On Track?

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Whew … What a crazy last month.
Between being abroad, being busy at work, going away for a ski trip I got sick. Throat hurted too much to control my breathing.
This all resulted in skipping more runs than I wanted to, but everything for the health right.

Past week I got a decent week in with 3 runs and a week total of ~64km(~40mi).
Seeing that Sunday the pacing half marathon is planned and in the past weeks I wasn’t able to hold a 4:30 pace for more than 4km, I’ll try to take it somehow easy.
I’ll do my distance, but at a low intensity.

Happy I’ve got something to blog about again!

February 25, 2015

Even training can be a struggle…

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Even simple training runs can sometimes feel as hard work!

January 5, 2015

Transition Week Recap

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I don’t and won’t do a lot of week recaps as I feel no one is really interested in those, but seeing it was a special week…
Oh and I promise this is the last New Year related post 🙂

This week I ran twice, once in 2014 and once in 2015.
I summed up a total of 36.85km (~22.9 miles) in those 2 runs, which isn’t all that bad.

First run was Tuesday, nothing exciting happened, but I did get a very nice pace (5:05min/km in Z1)
Strava & Endomondo for the number fans.

Second run was Sunday (yesterday). I hoped to get a long run in this weekend, but with another New Year dinner and The Girlfriend working shifts there wasn’t a lot of time to spare. Sunday morning I had the chance to bring my daughter to my father-in-law and I made do with the time I had.
Sadly no 2+ hours, but only 90 minutes.

So instead of a long slow run, I went for a mixed tempo run: 15′ Z2 – 20′ Z3 – 20′ Z2 – 20′ Z3 – 15′ Z2 (See my Heart Rate Zones here)
I went out on an empty stomach, as I always do in the weekends and brought some dates and carb-rich cookies, but in retrospect I should have eaten.
Weather was nice, wind was doable, yet I did not get to my desired pace at any point. My Heart Rate constantly went way too high.
I was glad to be home again.
Strava & Endomondo for the number fans.

So what did I learn?

Don’t do tempo runs of +1h on an empty stomach
You need more water when you run faster
Enjoying the sun is easier during a slow run

But hey, first run of 2015 is a fact and with 19km(~12mi) it could be worse.
Tonight a shorter recovery run and back into the weekly rhythm after two difficult weeks.

On a sidenote, seeing I want to run +200km(~124miles) per month, I joined the Greater Fitness 100 January Miles.

Have fun with all your runs!

December 30, 2014

Pacing a Half Marathon?

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Browsing through the blogs I’m following I’m reading a lot of resolutions (which I made myself too offcourse) and friends and family are obviously doing the same thing.

My brother ran his first half marathon this year and everything went way better than expected (Hoped for 5 min/km, ended up at 4:40 min/km which gave him a 1:38 finish time).
After some doubting about a marathon he decided to stick to HM for now and already signed up for one at the end of March.
At Christmas day he asked me to pace him.

I was honoured off course, but didn’t know if I could pull it off. My record dates 1.5y back (which is a lifetime considering my running career) and is ~1:36. My brother aims for 1:30 now.

I’m really considering this, because I think I can pull it off, but just to be sure I’ll test myself in the distance asap.
Last year I paced a marathon for a friend and that was in a relaxing pace for me, which meant I had enough breath to spare to say some encouraging words, With a 4:20 min/km (bit under 7min/mile) I don’t know if I’ll manage.

But see, the year hasn’t even started yet and opportunities already arise.

Have you ever paced a Half Marathon? How was it? I sure could use some pointers!

December 18, 2014

Mixing it up

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On top of lacking motivation because of the short days recently, there is a lot of wind here the last few days.
It keeps on blowing and has no intention to stop, so it seems.

Yesterday I went running for 80 minutes on a low heart rate, today I was scheduled for a slightly faster pace, but finishing work I already felt the excuses coming up in my head.
“It’s cold”, “It’s a lot of wind”, “You’re not fully recuperated after the 10k and your run yesterday”, “Your long tight is dirty and you’ll have cold calves”

I don’t think I need to tell all of you guys how easy it is to give in to this voice, but having the time and opportunity for the last time this week (except for somewhere in the weekend) it just had to be today.

So I decided to mix it up and switch pace in the middle.
It ended up being a 70 minute run from 20′ Z2 – 30′ Z3 – 20′ Z2

The wind sure gave me a hard time when returning, but constantly having the different pace to look forward to, it made the run a lot easier and more fun.

Being a creature of habit, it isn’t usually I change my training last-minute, but this time it surely did some good.

Statistics:

Ride Name:
Distance: 0 km
Elevation Gain: 0 m
Moving Time: 00:00:00

Do you have some (mind) tricks to break through the lack of motivation?
Or do you have some other way to make that little voice shut up?
Is changing pace something you like or not?

December 16, 2014

Road To Marathon Brabant 2013 – Final Training

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I’ve already talked about my decision to run a marathon and about my first training months afterwards. I now want to talk about the follow-up training after summer and the final training towards the race. Last post in the series will be race recap of M-Day.

After a pretty decent 396km (246 miles) in the summer months, fall approached and with it my last weeks towards the marathon. Having read up on tapering I knew I only had 6-7 weeks left of serious training.

Since training without a real plan seemed to work for me, I decided to continue with the same principles of my first training months and adding some intervals to gain my wanted speed. Setting my marathon pace at 5:00m/km (8:00 m/mile – 12km/h) this was needed, because many people said this was too fast for my limited amount of training.

Determined as I was, I pulled through with my desired pace and geared up.
Having always trained with my phone and the Endomondo app, I thought it was time for a GPS watch, especially handy for running intervals on heart rates. I won’t bother you with the details about the search for it, but in the end I went for the Garmin 310xt. A Multisport watch (handy for cycling) at a decent price and earned it’s stripes with a lot of honorable athletes.

I cannot say this enough to everyone running longer than the “intro” phase: buy a GPS watch, it was my best buy ever as a runner. Having constant control over pace, heart rate, speed, … without twisting my arm (smartphone arm holder) or being afraid to drop my phone was bliss. Necessary sidenote: I’m a number/statistics freak :-p

Besides a GPS watch it was time to slowly tossing my Brooks Adrenaline GTS 12 aside and getting a new pair. Not knowing a lot at this point about shoes, I decided to stick with what I knew and bought the GTS 13.

The 7 remaining weeks flew by as did I (in my interval trainings) and before I knew it, it was tapering time.
Not entirely knowing what this was (long live Google) I just ate an awful lot of pasta and went running 2 times for a short distance and a slow pace.

In September and October (before M-Day) joined I ended up with 496km (~308mi) which gave me a very decent base to go marathoning for my first time.

Race report coming up later, thanks for reading 🙂