Hi all, welcome back to my trainingsblog on my pr attempt for Spijkenisse Spark Marathon in November.
Today I set myself up for failure by aiming too high with regards to my weekly trainingsload. This means I experienced my first DNF (Did not finish) in over a year. While it is ofcourse more fun when everything goes according to plan - these are important learning opportunities. So Let’s break down what happened..:
The plan
I wanted to try and reschedule my progressive longrun so I had time to go on a day trip with the kids on Sunday. The scheduled workout would be roughly 35 km (including warming up & cooling down). The pace would progressively become a little stronger (but should be in my zone 3 / zone 4) => hard but doable.
What happened
I pulled out after 25km when I noticed that I could not make the pace for the last 2 kilometers. In my mind I had 3 options: - Soldier through it, make the distance at the best pace I could possible do. - Make the distance, ignore the pace. - Stop the workout and save some strenght for another day!
I decided to end the workout - so I might not have bested this workout. But I can just recover and focus on the next training!
So what went wrong? On hindsight it is easy to see what went wrong and that reflection is very valuable as it gives you a great opportunity for progress!
My mistakes: - not enough time between hard sessions. The training from Tuesday was HARD and should had given sufficient recovery time. My original schedule prescribed 2 easy days . My wish to reshuffle the workouts shortened recovery to 1 day. Tomorrow (Friday) would had been a better option.
- right before starting the run I had 2 cycle trips with a total of 18 km While not that intense, it did compound on my legs that were not fresh yet.
- HEEL LOCKS haha! I made an error not changing the lacing of my newer shoes… my Sunday long run gave me a painful purple nail. (Fixed the lacing!)
Looking forward This is why you train, it is allowed to be (too) difficult at times as long as you learn and adapt! I had great fun today - despite being a little disappointed. But will gladly focus on relaxing & recovery now and be ready for the next run!
Happy running!