Training Log Entry 22: October 31 - November 5, 2023

Monday October 30

Off

Tuesday October 31

I started off this week, similar to last week, with a longer easy run. I followed the same loop route in Italy Cross as I did a few weeks back, but I went in the opposite direction so that the larger hills were at the very start of the run.

I felt pretty good at the beginning, but the hills at the start were tough, and my legs never completely recovered from them for the rest of the run. About halfway through, there was another steep hill, and I ended up walking most of it to avoid pushing it too hard.

Then, with only a few kilometers left, I unfortunately experienced a bad breathing spasm. Since one of the side effects of these spasms is that my body temperature quickly decreases, and this was the first really cold and windy day of the season, I could not recover at all and had to wobble my way to the end. It had been a long time since I’ve had such a bad breathing problem, so it’s frustrating how quickly it ruined my entire run out of nowhere.

The total distance of the run was 11.7km.

I still plan on doing this route again, however, I’m definitely going to go the opposite direction since the uphills are more gradual compared to the direction I went today.

Wednesday November 1

For this workout, I decided to do 4km tempo at threshold pace, followed by 5x(30s on, 1’ float). This was another strength workout, similar to the one I did two weeks ago, aimed at getting comfortable doing longer efforts. The 4km was on a hilly route, so I focused on pacing the tempo smartly to avoid burning out on the later hills.

This workout nearly ended up being one of the best workouts I’ve had in a very long time. I felt extremely strong during the tempo. The first kilometer was almost all uphill, but I did a good job keeping my hips up and floating up the hill. I maintained a moderate effort the whole time, and my pace was still very good.

Everything was going well until 3km in when I experienced a minor breathing issue. It was so small that I tried to push through it since I was feeling really good beforehand, but as I started the last hill of the course, my leg strength disappeared, and I had to take a break. Fortunately, I recovered quickly and was able to finish the last kilometer of the tempo, but I overall felt much worse during this kilometer than how I was feeling during the rest of the rep. In the end, the splits for the 4km were good, with times of 4:11, 4:06, 4:03 and 3:46, averaging 4:02/km.

By the time I started the small fartlek, I had completely recovered. This part of the workout was much smoother, and I felt really strong. The fast reps gradually got quicker each time, while the floats were faster than usual but still felt comfortable. The splits for the ons were 3:40/km, 3:32/km, 3:21/km, 3:18/km and 3:17/km, averaging 3:25/km. The splits for the floats were 4:21/km, 4:28/km, 4:22/km, 4:39/km and 4:29/km, averaging 4:28/km.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the day was 14km.

Thursday November 2

I was extremely exhausted from the previous day’s workout, which made this hilly easy day challenging. My legs were too tired to handle most of the climbs, so I ended up walking and taking many breaks throughout the run.

My initial goal was to cover 10km on this day, but I only managed to complete 7.1km.

Friday November 3

For this day’s workout, I did a longer threshold interval session. The workout consisted of 8x800m with 2 minutes rest. My goal was to maintain a moderate intensity level, to ensure that followed the rest and avoid overtaxing my legs before the weekend’s long run.

This session turned out to be a solid workout. My initial goal pace was fairly conservative at 3:10 per 800m, but I managed to run the intervals much faster. The 800m splits were 3:08, 3:07, 3:05, 3:04, 3:02, 2:59, 3:01 and 2:55, averaging 3:03 (3:49/km).

I found a good rhythm during these reps, and my arm swing felt especially smooth. Most of the workout was at threshold, and it was only during the last two reps that I pushed a bit harder. Although I had planned to take a longer break after 4 reps, I was feeling really good and ended up taking only about 30 seconds of extra rest. Apart from one other rep where I also took a little extra rest, I was able to maintain the 2 minute recovery time.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the session was 14.7km.

Saturday November 4

This was a decent easy Saturday run. Going into it, I was feeling quite tired, but surprisingly, my legs felt good. I went off course a bit and walked some steep hills, but I still managed to comfortably cover 5.1km.

Afterwards, I did 5x100m strides, bring the total mileage for the day to 5.7km.

Sunday November 5

After last week’s easy long run, my goal was to go a bit harder while continuing to increase the distance. Therefore, I decided to do a flat point-to-point route from Hebbville to Queens County.

Overall, this was another solid long run. Given how flat the route was, I focused on gradually building up the pace to avoid starting off too quick. By the 4th kilometer, I had settled into a good pace, which I was able to maintain for the majority of the run.

While the splits stayed consistent, how I felt varied quite a lot. Right from the beginning of the run, my chest was tight, and I felt like a breathing issue could happen at any moment. I tried to relax my arms and not push the pace any further, but the tightness continued to persist. Then, at around the 10km mark, my chest started to loosen up, and my breathing felt much more relaxed.

The remainder of the run went smoothly. I took a brief break at 13km and then picked-up the pace for the last few kilometers.

The total distance of the run ended up being 18km.

This concluded the week with a total mileage of 71km with 600m of elevation gain.