28 days to go: Practicing pacing and racing down the wrong path
Remember last week’s blog where I wrote about how I paced a 10k so badly that they are now using it as case study in stupidity at Harvard, Oxford and Holy Cross Nursery? Well, this week was all about taking the learning from that mild faux pas and using training as intended: to practice and sharpen.
I am coming at you from Mile High City, or for our more metric minded, 1.61km High City. I am in Denver, Colorado this weekend and then off to Salt Lake City next week. That means some altitude training as well. I’ll tell you about my race experience over here at the end.
Right, so back to the training and pacing and learning. This isn’t Judith Chalmers’s blog after all.
Two key sessions after Sunday’s 10k. First one was 8x 1k with 60 seconds recoveries on Tuesday. Then a 50k long run with 10k fast, 1k easy and then 1k faster (x2) in the middle.
50k pacing. I was happy!
Tuesday’s session first. My intention, which I thought long and hard about before going out, was to run the 1k intervals at a faster pacing than I did on Sunday. But… and here’s the kicker, to have a distinct difference between the first 4 intervals and the last 4, and for that to be faster in the last 4. In others, pace canny and finish fast.
Context is I ran 35:15 for the 10k on Sunday. My first 4 pick-ups were at almost exactly that pace. My next 4 were around 34:25 pace. I was REALLY pleased with this. Just a couple of days after a hard effort and exactly as I intended. And especially as I forgot to take a gel with me or anything beforehand. Fasted AM intervals rule!
Much better consistency
On Thursday it was the turn of the long run. It’s great when your long runs are only 3:30 or so. Means doing them midweek is so much more practical. I got up at 4:20am for some breakfast and to stretch before the run. Four weetabix later I was on my way. When doing a session like this I like to leave supplies at my side window and us my house as an aid station. It works well and frankly I hate carrying stuff.
The intention on Thursday was the same as Tuesday. Faster finish than start. If you have been following the blog, I have also had a couple of issues in longer runs, whether just cause of tiredness or a cold, which means I haven’t been nailing these proof-point sessions the way I wanted to.
That changed on Thursday.
To run a PB at Toronto I need to run 4x 37:40 10ks and then hang on for the last 32k. That’s 8x 18:50 10ks. Or average 3:46ks, 6:04 miles.
This is a tall order. I feel my peak was during Covid. Like a lot of people and at 47, pushing this hard in training and racing is getting incrementally harder. That said, I really felt good on Thursday. I did the first 10k at 6:08 /mi with a 1k pick up at 5:59 /mi - then 8k easy before the next set which was at 6:02 /mi and 5:57 for the 1k pick up.
The point in this is that as I start the peak weeks the intensity and workload are up but I managed to get it done and to the standard and intention I had hoped for! The best bit was I didn’t actually look at my watched for almost all of this. Only at 5-6k in the second 10k set. Otherwise, it was all on feel.
Now, I am sharing some numbers I wouldn’t normally do. And I won’t be so fixated on pacing etc this week. I have been at this elevation a few times now and I totally expect 8:00 min miles to feel like 7:00 min miles. That’s how it rolls here.
That said, I will finish this week’s blog with reflections on a 5k race I did in Denver. I ran 12 miles to the start line and could feel the elevation. I started the race with the intention of going easy and feeling my way in. And my pacing was perfect. What wasn’t so good was not being directed down the correct path and finding myself and the two runners behind me crossing the line in 14:18 and a half mile short! But my pacing was ace and I wasn’t there for the win anyway!
Progressive splits, pacing discipline is working
Thanks for reading!
(Written by James Stewart)
