Week 6, 2011

Another solid week, with a sweet total of 75km and a nice 24K running trip on Sunday.

6
7 Feb - 13 Feb		 This week's totals: 5x, 7:55, 75km [9:10]
Next week's plans: 5x, 6:49, 68km
1:261:311:141:152:28
13.0 km15.0 km11.0 km11.7 km24.6 km
CROS 60' +
ER 2km [TM]		ER 12km +
10x100m/100m		CROS 60' [TM]ER 60' [TM]RT 24km
[140][152][139]
#85:39 min/km#95:36 min/km5:42 min/km
body pump

This week completed my 6 weeks preparatory period. Weekly mileage presented below. I'm real happy with my regularity: I started slow with 3 and 4 trainings in the first two weeks, but after that I did 5 trainings per week, like a clockwork, only missing one single training in week 4. Way to go!


After those 6 introductory weeks, I'm not about to proceed to next stage of training, i.e. working not only on endurance but also on speed. That means dropping long running trips and crosses but instead introducing two new types of training:

Running strength (RS): the idea of this training unit is to work on the muscle strength. It starts with a couple of easy kilometers and then the main part consists of doing some kind  of exercises while quickly running against a small hill. This typically involves 10 reps of 100-150m long ascents with exercises and jogging on the way back. The exercises are either skips (sprinting with your knees raised up to 90 degrees) or series of almost-jumps, with a long stride length or simply sprinting uphill. It's a frustrating training for people who like counting their miles (like me), as one "scores" during such training much less kilometers than even during an easy run of the same duration. But it's crucial for a good performance in a marathon, so from now on it will feature twice a week in my training plan.

Steady runs (SR): again twice a week, continuous run over a substantial distance (12-16km) at a speed close to the target speed at the marathon.

Next week, I'm going to spend the weekend in Lisbon, which means Saturday and Sunday are out, so in order to keep 5 trainings in the week, I'll have to run every weekday. That will make a streak of 8 days of continuous running. Since so far every week I was trying to increase the mileage, now it's time to step back a little; hence a slightly more relaxed plan for the next week.

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