Scotiabank Toronto Marathon 2016 - One week to go

M 9 miles HA (6:48mm), 5 miles (7:20mm)
T 9 miles HA (6:24mm), 5 miles inc. 4X2mins @103.2%MP (6:51mm)
W 7 miles HA (7:06mm)
T 14 miles with 16 KM's of alternating KMs (5:25mm)
F 7 miles HA (7:21mm), 5 miles (7:19mm)
S 7 miles HA (7:23mm)
S 11 miles including 15X1min(60s) (6:10mm)

Total 80 miles (6:41mm)
Aerobic efficiency 924 beats per mile
Weight 138.8lbs Vs 139.6lbs last week
Body Fat 9.3% (12.93lbs) Vs 9.3% (12.98lbs) last week
Lean Body Mass 86.1% (119.48lb) Vs 86.13% (120.23lbs) last week
Water 66.48% (92.25lbs) Vs 66.70% (93.11lbs) last week


So into this, the first week of taper and a big reduction in miles as I look to freshen up ahead of race day in a week's time. The hay is in the barn as they say after a decent build up so I was keen to ensure that I didn't do anything too stupid but it was also important to keep a bit of faster stuff in there to keep the legs ticking over.


I chucked in a few two minute efforts in an easy run on Tuesday and felt very strong, but the main sessions of the week were on Thursday and Sunday. The first of which was a session of 16 kilometres alternating pace each KM. Abel Kirui did this about 10 days out from the World Champs in 2011 (and no doubt 10 days before his victory in Chicago yesterday ;-) ). I decided to make a rare trip to the track for this one to make sure that there were no discrepancies with GPS and so I had a true understanding of the pace I was running at rather than think that my watch was just being incredibly flattering which I think it has a tendency to do some times! This is a big favourite of Canova as overall you end up running at a decent pace for a reasonable length of time, but experience pace much faster than you plan to run in the race. This should have the impact of making race day pace feel easy. The plan had been to hit each 'on' KM in about 104.5%MP (c5:10 pace or 3:12.6 per km) and each off KM in about 93% MP (c5:50 pace or 3:37.5 per KM). I managed to surprise myself averaging 3:06.4 per KM (5:02 pace which is 107% of PB Marathon Pace) for the 'on' efforts and 3:35 per KM (5:46 pace or 93.5% of PB Marathon Pace) for the 'off' recoveries. Looking back at the session I realised I had run each 'on' KM quicker than my 5k PB pace and I did eight of them with quite fast recoveries. This continues to confirm that I am in really really good shape so should help build my confidence.

Then to Sunday, which would have been race day at the Yorkshire Marathon had it not been for the Toronto call-up! Big shout out to Paul Martelletti, Scott Harrington, Jamil Parapia, James Watson, Charlie Wartnaby, Philip Eccleston, Franco Pardini, Darran Bilton, Simon Spears, Steve and Karen Head and long time chum Tom Watson on battling out his first marathon. I managed to go and watch a very small part of the race with my daughters which was great fun watching rather than running for a change. It certainly helped whet the appetite for next week.

 

Instead of the marathon, which would have been an ill-advised taper run(!) I ran a session of 15X1minute with 60 second jog recoveries. The plan was to try and keep them just under 5 minute miling. I did this quite nicely without straining and they averaged 114% (4:39mm) and I even had to ease up for the last 10 seconds on a few as I was running so strongly.

So I'm nearly there. The carb restricted diet started on Sunday and will continue until after my run on Thursday morning. No doubt I'll have some hairy low glycogen runs with elevated HR and generally feeling rubbish over the next few days where I start to question everything about my ability to deliver in the race. That and of course stressing about whether it'll be windy or not!

Aerobic efficiency went down a little bit, but I have seen that before as I get closer to race day. It is more often than not due to the reduced miles and feeling a little fresher rather than a sign of anything I should be concerned with. Weight has dropped a fraction.

I have started to put together an overview blog of my training block which I will put out later in the week, detailing some of the subtle differences I have made this campaign. I actually found it quite therapeutic putting it all down as there are actually quite a lot of differences which seem to have had a positive impact in my running. Of course it could all go horribly wrong between now and the race, but hopefully not! I'll also declare publically what my target is so anyone that wants to track on the day can see how I'm doing to target!

I would like to say a massive thanks to Russ Chew of Bang & Olufsen in Manchester for very generously sending me a pair of BeoPlay H3 earphones. Russ enjoys reading my blog and he kindly suggested that I may want some for my easy runs and warm ups. The earphones are absolutely brilliant with such clarity of sound and of course I feel a little cooler now I have a proper pair rather than those tinnie white things that I have had for a number of years! Handily these ones come with a number of different sized ear pieces meaning if like me you have asymmetric ears you can mix and match accordingly to make sure the damn things don't keep falling out! I will say I only ever started blogging as I found it a good mind dump to record what I was doing and how I felt my training was progressing week to week. It certainly wasn't planned to use it to try and get free stuff, so it was a lovely surprise when Russ messaged me. Thanks again.