God that's rough

Running club last night and it was just Chris and I doing the distance session. Lots of early mornings and late nights recently so was really feeling the tiredness. We started off with a 1200m loop in 3:51 which felt pretty easy before doing a Tabata loop which is the 10s easy 20s hard. Then another full rep in 3:47 for me with Chris breaking away on that one. Another tabata after that which is slowly turning into killer reps. Really lactic because of the short quick accelerations and once the 20s hard is done most of the recovery is taken up from slowing down. We then hit the track and did 4 x 400m with only 1 minute passive in between. My times were 70s, 69s, 69s, 69s. I was happy to be honest, nothing special but really tired by then, especially off only a minute. 10.8km all up.

Bit of both

Last week of school now and when I got home went out for a medium paced 8km in 35:53. Felt pretty good to be honest. After that got on the bike and cycled up to the pool for a swim session. I used the 25m indoor pool and did 3 lengths at an easy or medium pace and one length sprint. Tough to be honest and the arms are sore now.

Ferny Long Run

Early start, drove up to Ferny Creek with Chris and Nick and met Declan there. We were joined by a guy called Xavier who was a bit of a gun. We did a different route than usual and it was much more of a grind. The first section is nearly all downhill followed by 7 or 8 km of flat and uphill trails. The end section though is a really rough hill which is made worse as you've already run uphill for the previous few miles. Got through it in the end though and did just under 15km in 1:17:03. Really enjoyed it.

State Relays 4 x 800m

Arrived at Lakeside stadium before quickly putting in a short warm up and some drills. Then found out I was running first leg so got nervous real fast after seeing who I was racing. Lined up in lane 7 and waited for the gun. I got out fast and made it to the cones before coming into lane one. No idea what position I was in but just stuck with the person in front of me. Split the first lap in 60s flat but I didn't know while I was running. From there just tried to hang on and with 300m to go the leaders pulled ahead of me. Tried to maintain the distance between me and the person in front of me and it worked well. Pushed as hard as I could the last 200m and managed to hand the baton to Chris well before sucking in as much air as I could. Chris and same took second and third respectively with Daniel taking the last leg. Daniel just got beaten so we managed a quality 4th in the state as a team. I managed to run 2:06 which I was so happy with. No idea how I managed it but there you go. We're off to ferny tomorrow.

Solid

First run in a few days tonight just trying to recover well and I did okay tonight. The session was (1200m + 300m) x 3 with 2 minutes recovery between the 1200m and the 300 and 4 minutes between the 300 and the next 1200m. Started off well in the first 1200m coming in at 3:55 before the 300m which was slow in 49s. The next 1200m was tougher in 3: 51 but still felt okay before another slow 300m in 48 this time. Did the last 1200m just holding onto Tom in 3:49 and did a much quicker 300m in 43s. 9.3km all up. I have my first competitive 800m race of all time this Saturday, however it is in a 4 x 800m relay. I am in a team with Chris, Sam and Daniel. Sam and Daniel train with other coaches but are very strong runners with Sam dipping under 9 minutes for 3km this season and Daniel under 4:10 1500m despite both of them only being 16. Should be a great race, the goal is a top 3 finish in a very strong field.

Making Changes

Looking back the past week I'd say its fairly obvious I'm doing too much. Lots of hard and double sessions last week and now I'm feeling tired all the time and the training and racing quality is going out the window so I'm going to cut back on the hard sessions to just 2 a week and I'm going to focus the rest of the mileage on easy and long runs. Doing that kind of program seemed to benefit me the most in the past so that's what I'm going to stick to. Really keen to make the change and to see what the results are.

Shield 3000m

Ran awfully, 9:54, will do better next time.