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Old 06-09-2014, 02:02 PM   #105
FrogMan
Hattrick Moderator
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Pintendre, Qc, Canada
Last week was a good first week toward the half marathong. 6 runs, 30.7 miles in 4:40:46 for an average pace of 9:08.

Saturday was an easy 5 km while yesterday, I had my first real bout with hot temperature. Had a packed day yesterday, teaching karate classes from 9:30 to 11:15 and then officiating at a karate competition from 1 to 3:30, I decided against going out early for the long run as it would have meant 90 minutes of running starting at maybe 6:30, before a long day. I hadn't planned for it to be so warm when I got back home from the competition. When I headed out for my run at about 4:20pm, it was about 84F with relative humidity at about 32%. For me, that's hot. I left the house with my two 300ml bottle in my hydration belt filled with water as well as a handheld 600ml bottle in one hand.

That was a simple easy run in which I went by heart rate instead of definite pace, trying to keep the heart rate below 125 BPM at most times. It crept up a bit on a couple uphills but overall it went pretty well...

9.72 miles in 1:30:57 for an average pace of 9:21 per mile, avg HR at 124 BPM with a max at only 131
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/516756501

I got this big crazy race coming up this weekend, a race for which I have absolutely no expectations. It's a staircase challenge, 13.5K in distance or so with soem 1277 steps going up and 648 more going down all through the Old Quebec. Obviously, there's some running in between stairs.

You can see the course here:
Défi des escaliers de Québec 2014 - Google Maps

I'm doing the blue and green course. There's a 19K distance that will do the blue and orange course...

I am not tapering much this week as this is not a goal race. It's gonna definitely be a challenge, but as I got no reference, I'll simply go into this one trying to do my best and pacing by heart rate on the running sections. I do plan to reverse taper next week, depending on how much damage them stairs do to my leg muscles

This week's training plane goes like this:
MON 7 km recovery run
TUE 8x 400m @ 5K pace
WED 7 km easy run
THU 45 minutes progression
FRI 5 km recovery run
SAT rest
SUN RACE DAY!

Funny trivia. I finished 3rd in my age group in that trail race about 3 weeks ago. The guy who won our age group for this 13.5K stairs challenge last year finished 2nd in the trail race, about only 16 seconds ahead of me... The same guy also finished just ahead of me, 13th to my 14th in M40-49, in last week's Royal Descent 10K, by about 49 seconds. That is kind of interesting.

It's going to be a staged start, 6 runners going off every 10-12 seconds, just like it was for the trail race so I won't have a clue where we stand one to the other until the finish line. Will simply try do my best.

FM
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