Week 14, 2012

Last week before the marathon...

The last week was lousy. But I forgot to mention that even with it being lousy, I managed to reach my new monthly record, with 344km covered in March.

This week I started off with easy 14K on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday I did some long intervals. My plan was to repeat a training that I did 3 weeks earlier, i.e. 4x2K. The funny thing is that after having rested last week now I felt as if I was starting a new running season -- i.e. my legs were hurting after the easy (!) training from Tuesday and I didn't feel capable of great accomplishments. To make matters worse still, I wrongly calibrated my watch so that I had no idea how fast I was running. Net result: not very fast as I averaged 4:11 over the intervals (compared to 4:01 three weeks earlier). Not a good sign. Not at all...

I took Thursday off, did easy 11K on Friday. Normally at this point, one week before the marathon, I would race 10K. It was Easter so not a chance to find a race. I first thought of just running 10K with all I had, but given earlier developments of this week, in the end I decided it wasn't such a great idea. Instead I planned to do 10K at a pace somewhat faster than a marathon pace but without giving it all I had. I ended up averaging 4:20 per kilometer, with an average heart rate of 166 -- quite a bit below what I'd do in a race at this distance, so I decided maybe still there's some hope.

Sunday off and next week I'm planning to mostly rest. Big day is coming.

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