A) now almost every week I go running at SongShan Lake, which is in the souther outskirts of Dongguan.
It take me a 25' drive to go there, so not like running straight from home, but is the perfect place for long runs and in general running.
The whole loop is a kind of 8-shaped around the lake 22K+8K....they set up a great cycling track, far from any traffic and with the pleasant view of the lake.
Yesterday I had planned a hard long run, which is by nature a scaring combination of words...
So i felt hesitant at the beginning but the weather was so perfect that I could not miss the opportunity to do a similar workouts in the few occasions before the Standard Chartered Marathon...
The drawback of running there is that you must carry water because there are no water fountains or shops open on weekdays. So i had a water bottle with a gel taped on it...
The plan was a 5k warm-up, than doing at least 23k "tempo run", then 2k cool down to reach 30k.
For the tempo section, I was targeting a bit slower then my target marathon pace, so running at 4'00" would have been enough...
It might have been the perfect cool winter weather, or the setting, but I felt rather good and I was running faster than planned with the HR reasonably low...
In honesty, running fast makes the long run much less boring than slogging around at easy pace and I reached 5k, then 10k and 15k in a blip. From 15k the course is slightly hilly and some headwind was picking up, so I had to focus in keeping the pace...
I reached my 23K in 1h28' (3'52" pace !!) and still feeling very well, but I did not want to overdo it... so it was time for cool down...
Overall a great workout... 30k in less than 2 hours (including W/U and C/D)
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/61228251
Note: I am totally disappointed by using a Garmin with GPS only (no foot pod). The instant speed displayed is totally unreliable and quite disconcerting because you see your pace fluctuating from 4'30" to 3'40" without reason... New Year, back to Polar and food pod (or Garmin + foodpod)
2) time for year end balance:
compared to 2008, I can not dwell into elaborate charts because in the past couple of months I recorded my workouts only on SportTracks which does not have any way to export data to excel
Anyway some statistics for the year:
- Km run: 2393
- Workouts: 233
(Note: there were also 2700Km done on a bicycle in 83 workout)
83+233 = 316 workouts in a year...which is a good 6 workout/week in average (I think some double workout can affect the data)
SportTracks 3 gives anyway the opportunity to find other interesting statistics...
Did you usually train more on week ends ?? NOT ME....
The data says that I train more on mid week when I am stationed in Dongguan and make bachelor life....
or, to put in other words, I dedicate the week-ends to the family rather than running (I will print out this chart for my wife....)
Do you have a usual "rest" day ?
I have... and it seems monday
Both distance and pulse rate are at their lowest on Monday, so it was definitely my easy day...
After my long stop for injury I had to build up the volume gradually and it seems that I was able to progress the volume (apart from the drop caused by my son's birth)
Program for the new year:
After 11 years in South China/Hong Kong, it was time to make my debut at the local marathon, so in February I will take part in the Standard Chartered Marathon
April: dream of another marathon...
August: I already enrolled in Berlin, even if it will be a nightmare to train during the summer
December: dream of taking part in Fukuoka Marathon one more time...
Now, the issue is that the qualification standard is not sub 2h42' (!!), which is not a joke...
- Achieving it in Hong Kong: very tough, the course is hilly and the weather unpredictble (usually on the negative side)
- Berlin: another huge question mark because of the difficulty to train properly in summer tropical weather. And also the entry deadline for Fukuoka is 30/9, while Berlin is on 25/9, so I would have to run fast and than run even faster to a DHL store to post my entry (entry is only by mail....)
For that, I would really wish to run something in Spring, a flat course in Japan or Europe... ideally 5-6 weeks after SCM so that I can recover properly without losing endurance. There are some "candidate marathons", but is not really easy to leave Hong Kong for a long week-end and leave the troops behind... let's (I stop blogging and make the entry for Rotterdam... in the worst case I will lose the entry fee...)
Happy New Year to everybody and many PB to come !!
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