Work smarter not harder This applies to many things in life, but also to running. Simply adding to much high paced kilometers will leave you out of sufficient recovery time. In my previous training blocks towards races, I translated this into a mix of low impact runs (zone 2) and marathon pace runs (zone 3), which gave me sufficient time to reat or to incorporate recovery runs (zone 1). So far this worked, but there is still a 20 min gap to cover upon reaching my time goal (< 3 hour marathon).
My approach to cover this gap consists out of three parts: 1. losing weight (while I am pretty fit, I am no where near as fit as I was in my boxing days | goal is to go from 89kg to 78-81kg => no crash diet but eating cleaner) 2. Strenght workouts; I am adding 2 strenght workouts a week. One harder lifting session and one bodyweight session. 3. Focussed sessions in zone 4 and 5. Increasing my VO2 max by adding both strong intervals (zone 5) aswell as lactate threshold runs (zone 4).
Lactate Threshold (LT run) The goal of this type of run is not to run an interval as fast as possible but to keep your heartrate in a specific window to train yourself to endure harder training loads longer. (Combining this with zone 5 intervals , should translate to faster long runs).
The workout:
- 10 min warmup (mid zone 2)
- 7 min run (zone 4)
- 2 min recovery jog (zone 1 / low zone 2)
- 7 min run (zone 4)
- 2 min recovery jog (zone 1 / low zone 2)
- 7 min run (zone 4)
- 10 min cooling down (mid zone 2)
While it was pretty cold this morning there was quite some delay in my heartrate. So my watch registed that my heartrate was too high, causing me to slow down a little to be within the optimal window, but soon after I was allowed of “heartrate low”. While the pace didn’t cause any trouble it was hard to stay within the correct range.
My results;
Overall, fun run! Beautiful weather for running and great to take a break from work!
Happy running!
