Testing Week
Last fitness testing before the 1/2 marathon
It is the end of another week and we are now three weeks out from the half marathon. This week was about dropping down the total volume a little bit and doing the last fitness test to get a gauge on how the training has been going. I find that testing fitness at certain intervals is really important and I like to do this at set distances where I can measure myself against prior performances. This can be a race used for training purposes or what essentially becomes a simulated race effort, which is what I did to end this week. It was important to bring the volume down a little to help mitigate the effects of the hard effort today which would contribute to a high weekly effort.
I usually take Monday off from training and this week was no different. The goal was to ensure I had a little recovery in after the 10 mile run last Sunday. This was critically important after my longest run of the training block so far.
On Tuesday I did a three mile easy run. This has become the standard throughout my half marathon training. Normally, I accomplish my Tuesday and Thursday runs in the evening after dropping off the oldest at MMA training. This week on Tuesday I went out for my lunch break and marked out a 5k out and back turnaround point for my flight’s weekly Wednesday PT session. I am making sure the Airmen keep working themselves physically. I’m sure I looked a little silly running with a roll of duck tape to mark a turnaround point, but it worked out just fine the next day for our PT session!
Wednesday has become my usual cross training day through the block of training for the half marathon. However, this week it became an unintended running day as we did that 5k for our PT session.
Normally on Thursday I am doing another 3 mile easy run. However, since I would not be running on Saturday this week to set myself up for the fitness test on Sunday this week deviated from the norm. This meant a 5 mile easy pace run on Thursday. Normally this would be in the evening after stopping by the MMA gym to drop off the oldest. However, we are getting close to the overly hot weather of summer in Las Vegas so I did an early morning run to start getting myself ready for what it will be like all summer long. I was out the door a couple of minutes after 0500 and knocked out a nice 5 miles when the temperatures were only in the 60’s. Once summer is in full swing I expect that even at 0400 we will be in the 80’s or 90’s most mornings!
Friday was another day off from training which was a good thing heading into the weekend. As mentioned earlier Saturday would normally be a moderate distance run of around 5 miles at either easy pace or half marathon race pace depending on the week. However, to recover and be fresh for Sunday this became a cross training day and I took her dogness out for a 3 mile walk at the city park and brought along a 35 pound rucksack for myself. I think rucking, even at just an 18 to 19 minute per mile pace is undervalued. I find it has a lot of benefit in building leg strength while also getting the heart rate into the high zone 1 and low zone 2 for cardiovascular benefit.
This brings us to Sunday. The goal for today was to put in a race effort for the 10k distance to test the fitness growth from the training block so far. I’ll just say one this up front this session went as well as I could have hoped for. This workout entailed 8.21 planned total miles which started with 1 slow mile to get the blood flowing follow be a few strides before starting the hard 10k effort for the fitness test. I was aiming for a 10k pace of 8:30 to 9:10 per mile pace and was very happy with my 8:45 per mile pace. Here is a break down of the full run.
As it turns out this was a 10k PR for me, at least since we have had apps to track our workouts. I am pretty sure I have run a faster 10k, but it was before garmin connect, strava, or any other related apps existed and I have no record of when or how fast. So we can just call this a 10k PR for me during my half marathon training!
Overall I think this was a productive week of training and I think it was good to lower volume a little bit and test myself at a higher pace. The next two weeks are my final weeks of building volume/mileage ahead of the half marathon. During these weeks I will also be finalizing my gear and nutrition plan for race day (I will be sure to write up a separate post about my decisions and reasoning behind them). You can also expect a race rollup/review after the half marathon is complete. Thanks for reading, lets get out there and push ourselves to new heights! Until next week.