15 minutes off 10km PB....next steps???

[Rich_1979]

Hi - after following your 10km training plans since September 2012 and reading the excellent advise given in these forums I thought I would register and see if you could help me achieve this years milestone. First some background, I used to run at a high level back in my teenage years (400/800m mostly) and won at county and regional level a number of times in the UK. However as with a lot of people I let myself go at university and my early twenties and didn't run for 15 years. In July last year at 33 years old and 98kg I decided to try and shed the kilos so took up jogging. I got myself up to being able to run 10km in 62 minutes and dropped to 93kg. I then started following your 10km in under 50 minutes training (with some modifications to the pace as I was a long way off 50 minutes). Having run a 52 min in October I then managed to run 47m 07secs on a very flat (but windy) course in December and my weight was down to 82kg.

I had a break over Christmas (and a cruise which means I am back up to 85kg) and now I am ready to go again and my target is to get my time down to sub 40 mins this calendar year. I live in Australia so it is currently the track season (summer and very hot) but I do have some runs booked in for March (a 10km and 15km), April (a 10km), July and October (both 10km).

I did a couple of weeks of build up jogging and last week I started on the sub 50 min training to see where I was at, below is how I got on.

Wednesday - 60 mins easy (9.45km)
Thursday - 30 mins easy (5.23km)
Friday - 3 x 2km R90 (8m 58, 9m 59, 9m 37) - went too fast on the first one!
Sat - Rest
Sun - 90 mins (only made 70 mins for 11.5km)

Based on this would you suggest I continue the sub 50 plan for the next two weeks? Also from my long run it seems I have lost a lot of stamina as I would have easily run 15+ km before Christmas. Will this come back if i follow the training plan or should I adopt some longer distance runs into the plan?

Any help would be appreciated as I would really like to run a solid sub 50mins in the race on March 9th?

**note my Polar HRM passed away over Christmas so I don't have any HR info, although my new shinny Garmin Forerunner 610 is currently on a plane from the UK so I should be able to post HR information later this week for my runs.

Rich

[TheEd]

Hi Rick and welcome to the forums

thanks for the detailed data. It certainly looks as though you have an engine below the bodywork

caution is your best friend and if you able to put a few weeks together without too many problems then you should jump up to a new level.

No need to try do it all in the next 2 weeks however we shall run through and then if you able to do a 4k time-trial we can take an assessment from that and plan forward

from your data it looks that you have learned a fair amount about yourself and training, so we should hopefully not have hassles.

This week you can look to do the 1k session and the pace can be 4.15 to 4.20 per k

over to you

thanks for your patience

TheEd

[Rich_1979]

Thanks TheEd - you are correct I have learned a lot in the past few months mostly from these forums and training plans, and I'm ready to kick on this year

So this week I'll do the following - let me know if anything is incorrect

Mon - 30 min Easy (I did this tonight, being in Aus I'm a few hours ahead of Europe where I assume you are based)
Tue - 30 min Easy
Wed - 5 x 1km (4.15 - 4.20 pace)
Thur - 30 min Easy
Fri - 30 min Easy

I'll update you after the 1k session to see what you recommend next

Rich

[Rich_1979]

Hi TheEd,

Not been too great a week so far but here are my session details;

Mon 4th - 30 mins easy, 4km
Tues 5th - 30 mins easy, 3.95km, pace 7:35m/km, Av Heart Rate - 139
Weds 6th - 5 x 1km R90;

5:40 warm up - 0.69km, 8:15m/km, Av HR 124
1km - 4:23, Av HR 154
2km - 4:48, Av HR 161
Stopped

As you can see not a great start, however tonight for the failed 5 x 1km session the temperature was still 35C at 8pm and I have always struggled to run in the heat! Also my easy runs are done from my house which is very hilly and it's very hard to run slow enough on the inclines to stay within the 140 HR limit.

I'm at a bit of a loss really with this weeks runs, would you suggest continuing with the plan for the next few days (30 easy x 2 sessions, then 5km paced run?) just to see if where I at and whether it is the heat or my fitness causing the performance loss? The forecast is for the next two days to be 35C +, then it drops to the late 20's for the weekend which is when I could do the 5km paced run, or perhaps a 4km time trial?

Appreciate your thoughts/suggestions as I'm determined to get back on track,

Rich

[TheEd]

take a few days easy and then see if you can pop the 4k time-trial in

try to do it on a course you can use often, so it is a measurement which you can refer to

once we have that result we can look to move forward

Cheers

TheEd

[Rich_1979]

Hi TheEd

I took a couple of days off over the weekend like you suggested and did the 4km time trial tonight, below are my activities since my last post;

Thursday - training with a group, 5 x 200m hills with 400 jog recovery, then track based 1km (4:23) and 2 x 500m (both 1:58)

Friday - Rest

Sat - Badminton as active rest

Sun - 30 mins easy - 4.5km, Ave HR 143

Mon - 4km Time Trial, 19:30, Av HR 164, Max HR 173, Pace 4:52
- splits: 4:39, 4:41, 5:07, 5:00

Temperature was a lot better (mid 20's) which certainly made a difference, however I am a lot slower than before my Christmas break that's for sure.

So what would you suggest for this week, I have a 10km race on the 9th March (so around 4 weeks away) and I would be thrilled to run a solid sub 50 minute provided the weather isn't too extreme.

Rich

[TheEd]

Rich start with Day 3 of the sub 50 minute 10km schedule on Thursday

start with 3x2k R90-2min 9min 50 (4.55 per k)

for Day1 being Tuesday you can do up to 1hr easy

and then take a rest day Wednesday

Thursday 2k session and then we chat thereafter to see how your progress is going

TheEd

[Rich_1979]

Hi TheEd - hope your week has been good. Here is an update on the last two workouts as per your suggestion;

Tuesday - 60 mins, 9.37km, av pace 6:24, av HR 148
Wednesday - Rest/Badminton
Thursday - Rest
Friday - 3 x 2km R 2mins
- 9m 58s
- 9m 45s
- 10m 19s

I had to swap Thurs/Fri due to valentines commitments on Thursday. Fridays session was done in the dark due to high temperatures in the day, run was done at 28C. It felt hard which was surprising as I am actually feeling like my fitness is coming back and I have dropped 2kg over the last week (now 85kg, target 80kg).

I think running a little earlier in the evening I would have been a little quicker on the last rep, but obviously lots of work to do still.

What would you suggest for the weekend? Long run of 1h 45 then two easy 30 min days as per the training plan? If so what pace or HR should the long run be done at?

Thanks for your advice,

Rich

[TheEd]

cut the long run to 90 minutes, run as easy as you can ..

Rest day, day after

then 30 minutes before next weeks 1k session

hopefully you able to start getting into a rhythm quite soon

enjoy

TheEd

[Rich_1979]

Hi TheEd - hope you had a nice weekend. Results for the last two sessions as follows; (I did the 90 min run on a treadmill due to the heat we are still having here in Melbourne, did it at 1% incline as I have read elsewhere on here).

Sat - 90 mins easy, 13.07km, pace 6m 53s, Av HR - 140
Sun - Rest
Mon - 30 mins easy, 4.45km, pace 6m 44s, Av HR - 143

I think tomorrow (Tue) is the 5 x 1km? What pace should I be aiming for on these? The weather orecast for tomorrow is back down into the mid-late 20's so it should be better conditions than the past couple of weeks

Rich