Week 3 - Wednesday and Friday
Things could only get better
Good news, everyone!
– Professor Farnsworth
I did not bail on the plan after Monday’s awfulness. Really thought I might, though. Started to resent having a plan at all, much how I always expected to feel and why I’ve never done one before. WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME DO THIS STUPID SHIT, etc. But I persevered, and will complete week 3.
Wednesday: Long run
Wednesday’s weather was a whole load of nondescript, such that it’s literally pointless to try and describe it. So I won’t.
Runna told me to do this:
- Run 11km at conversational pace
And that’s it. No warm up or cool down or bursts of speed or anything at all. Just go out and run slowly. 80/20 rule, or something.
I still have auto-lap turned off on my watch, and neglected to turn it back on for this workout. Consequently, all my watch displayed the whole time was how much distance I had left. It never once told me my pace, and while presumably I could’ve swiped the screen to find out more stats I decided to see how I would cope mentally without knowing anything, and just running. Hence, after looking at my watch about 200 metres in, I then didn’t glance at it until about 1.3km to go.
What I did look at was my phone, every so often. In my ears I had a podcast of almost exactly an hour, so by seeing how much I had left I could sort of tell how much distance I had left if I was running a sensible pace, and I thought I was. But really, I didn’t actually know. How can I tell if something is slow enough to be conversational, I thought, as I left Peasmarsh woods? And I thought, well, say something out loud:
Am I running at conversational pace? Can I finish fairly long sentences farly easily? Well I guess this IS conversational pace!
And then I had to stop for busy traffic at a roundabout in rush hour anyway, so the pace went to zero. Duh.
My problem with this run, if it can be called a problem, is that I got all wide-eyed and excited during the last km and deliberately sped up. Just couldn’t maintain the slow pace once the finish line was in sight. I do it all the time anyway, it doesn’t have to be a race for me to finish strong, but I don’t know if this is bad for The Plan. But it’s what I did, so there.
So, 11km @ 6:05/km was the instruction, and the result was 11km @ 5:51/km. Not significantly off, and skewed a bit by the final km being 5:37. But no single km slower than 6:00. I mean, I’m fine with that. Finished exactly where I wanted to be, at the Shell garage where I frequently turn up all sweaty and knackered after running and the guy asks me every single bloody time if I’m also buying petrol along with the powerade and flapjack. No mate, I’m not.
Anyway here’s the run on Smashrun and Strava.
For no apparent reason, I felt pleased with this run. Probably because it’s the longest run I’d done since … July? June even? Probably June.
Then I decided I’d be even more pleased if I cleaned the shit off the selfie camera.
Friday: Fast 8-4-2s
I had been terrified of this ever since I saw it coming up. Yes, I know I said in a previous instalment that none of the workouts struck fear into me, but that was a lie to try and make myself feel better.
Earlier in the week I made the mistake of scrolling through the entire training programme right up to February, and there aren’t many workouts which make me wince tbh - indeed, there are some which make me think, wow, is this plan going to make me that good? - but today’s really did. Here’s what it wanted me to do:
- 1km at conversational pace (still 6:05/km)
- 2x 800m @ 5:00/km, 90 seconds walking rest
- a little punchy, but I’ve managed that pace recently…
- 6x 400m @ 4:45/km, 60 seconds walking rest
- now hang on a minute
- another bonus 60 seconds rest
- 5x 200m @ 4:35/km, 40s walking rest
- seriously, steady on!
- another 40s rest
- 1km at conversational pace “or slower!”
Oof. I mean, oof. Those are top-end paces… aren’t they? But hey look, there’s a couple of psychological things going on here:
- Runna says I need to do them, so I need to do them. I am submitting myself to the plan.
- Runna reckons I can do them, so maybe it’s right and I’m wrong if I think I can’t.
Only one way to find out! And that’s to go outside in the “so dense it required a Met Office weather warning” fog. Seriously, visibility was ludicrously low. I wore the only jacket I’ve got that could be described as high-vis and set off in the gloom.
I will probably/possibly stop banging on about this as the weeks progress and I get used to it, but we’re not there yet so hey: once again, the watch only tells me how much is left of the current “lap” and no other information, unless it throws up a pace warning. So who knows how conversational the first 1km was, but whatever. Here come the intervals!
The 8s
Spent most of the first 800 metres staring at my watch as it complained about my pace being either too fast or too slow pretty much every 10 seconds or so. Found it incredibly frustrating, I don’t know over what period it’s reporting the pace for but it felt like I over-corrected no matter what I did. Frustrating. Second one similar, albeit I thought maybe I’d got it a little steadier. Either way, the pace I did run felt strong but not terribly knackering. Good.
The 4s
First 400 metres, same again. Pace all over the show, which concerned me more in the shorter interval. Kinda tried to tend towards the fast end than slow end. Second 400 was an absolute shitshow, I ran around the lake and I dunno… GPS signal due to the trees or something, but I was definitely putting in a hard effort and Garmin was all like “yo, slowcoach, 5:30”. As soon as I peeled off and ran along the tarmac adjacent to the rugby club it was like “oh my bad, 4:25”. Stupid thing.
The rest of the 400s were more of the same, albeit without quite as much variability and definitely no accusations of taking it easy.
During this set was when I noticed for the first time that my watch did have some more information, specifically it told me what rep I was in of the current set. No more losing count for me! At least, not on a day when I can actually make out what my watch is saying because it’s not tipping it down.
Heart rate was definitely up by now and I wasn’t looking forward to the 200s.
The 2s
OK. You know what, fuck it. I figured the best way to avoid running at a variable pace here would be to just go all out at a pace I felt I could maintain for all 5 reps. And that’s what I did. These were run up and down the same bit of path in the park as the filthy raining reps from Monday, and it was so much nicer in the dry but I think all the members of public I was running past thought I was a fucking lunatic.
In conclusion
Very grateful for the bonus walking rest after the 200s, leading into the cooldown 1km. And, bloody hell, that 1km felt difficult. Intervals eh. Hard work. But how did I do?
| Phase | Instruction | Actual | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| warmup | 6:05/km | 5:34/km | Too fast. That it didn’t feel too fast is, I contend, a good thing |
| 2x 800m reps | 5:00/km | 4:54, 4:55 | Slightly too fast, but nothing drastic |
| 6x 400m reps | 4:45/km | 4:37, 4:32, 4:48, 4:48, 4:43, 4:45 | Wow! Really good. Second was obviously GPS issues causing havoc |
| 5x 200m reps | 4:35/km | 4:00, 4:10, 4:15, 4:25, 4:10 | Hah. Yup, much too fast, lost it a bit before strong finish. |
| cooldown | 6:05/km | 5:39/km | Huh. It felt MUCH slower than that |
And actually, Garmin has these graphs that make my efforts look very decent.
Well, I mean, I am pretty happy with that. Should I be? Who cares. Runna now thinks it has enough information about me from fast runs that its AI can make recommendations, and currently it recommends: changing nothing. Not because I’m doing brilliantly, but it reckons my pace is too varied and confusing for it to draw any conclusions from. Which is probably fair.