Secret 10k reps session II yields improved 43min17 effort

Sunday June 24th; Ran my secret 10k reps session in 43min 17, [+ added a 300m rep (1min 06 HR 186) at the end cos I felt pretty good]. Heart rates 183-198. Rests; 7 minutes of active recovery (jogging) between reps. Average speed per km for 10k reps session 4min 19.79 per km.

This morning I woke up with a resting heart rate of 44 beats per minute!!! Wuhoo, my best this year so far by a long way, and pretty close to my all-time best reading ever which is 42 from 2003. My second best ever is a 43 in April 2005. I hit the 44 once in March 2006, 5 times during 2005, several times in 2003, twice in 2002 and none in 2004. Some detailed data on this on one of my webpages @ http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/7549/data1.html

So this is the best indicator so far that I am hitting peak cardio-respiratory fitness just in time for Perth Marathon 2007, so if I can continue in this direction, smashing my 2004 P.B. of 3.55 looks very likely! Two weeks to get it right.

So I knew what I needed to do was to head for the track to do a 10k reps session and push home the advantage further!...Knowing I was physiologically and mentally ready to take on this demanding session. Decided to stay indoors yesterday and ride out the stormy weather plus catch up on online stuff, have a cruisy r and r (rest and recovery) day, after another solid week at work. Weather looked the best its looked for about 48 hours so made the most of it.

So onto the bumpy Noranda grass track with the camber in lane 1 (maybe I should find a better track, but its just too far to travel). South Westerly winds blowing throughout, so front straight was hard work, and the back straight had a nice cruisy tailwind.

Decided to really attack my first rep and work on getting as close to 4.15 per km pace as possible. Went through my first 1k of this session in 4.05, and a HR of 186, so good solid start. Heart rates were in 190's for my next 2 reps, as I pushed the pace hitting around 4.14 to 4.16 per km pace. Vomited water a bit after the 198 heart rate, and decided to take it easy on the next rep. (A heart attack is not my aim.) Then cranked it up to 192 again on one of my last reps but the rest of my reps were in the 183-189 zone as I persistently churned out 4.17-4.34 per km pace.

Felt surprisingly good after my last rep, and thats when I thought I'd add an extra 300m sprint at the end, just to add one extra edge to one very satisfying reps session! Then it was warm down jogging, and stretch the quads,hammys, and calves which is my normal warm down routine after every race and track session especially.

An excellent session very happy with it which is only a few split seconds shy of a 1 minute improvement on the 44min 17 I did on 20th May 2007 A.D. see;
http://runmara2005blog.blogspot.com/2007/05/10k-reps-session-i-and-triggs-beach-run.html.....

WEEK 14 (18/06/07-24/06/07);

Volume; 90min + 36.5hrs MR. Sessions; 1 +MR Best RHR;44!!! bpm Sleep; 42.5hrs *27


OD/LSD/LFD sessions; NIL

Races/Time trials; NIL
Reps sessions; 10k reps session 43min 17 (4.19 per km) 24/6/07.

Comments; An instant replay of last week almost. Another hardcore week at work, culminating in a tough slog in the rain for several hours on Friday afternoon. On the bright side hopefully Kathryn and I will be ready for some of the myriad of bills coming our way in July, as the birth of our baby draws ever nearer. Should be sometime in the next 1-6 weeks I hope. i.e. before 12th August.

No training in the week, and I once again really needed to recover from work on Saturday, despite Daves tempting offer of a group trails run, plus the possibility of catching up with the intrepid comrades (89km) runners at the Hills Training group. Plus the need to ration petrol money also obvious. The stormy weather of heavy rain, gusty winds, and lightning strikes was not very inviting anyway. Clarkson substation non-operational due to lightning strikes leaving much of northern suburbs without power. Our power flickered once, but no problems really here. Glad I stayed indoors. So that left only sunday to train, and once again, like last week it was a case of which session is priority numero uno. Reps was the answer, so long run and time trial were relegated to "maybe next week" status.

Two weeks to go, and I am quietly confident my Perth Marathon plans of a 3.29-3.49 are looking good, and that elusive P.B. is a strong possibility (assuming of course God allows our baby to come on the right day, if not, I'll just have to wait for some different races, cos even though it would be a huge disappointment, Kathryn and our baby come first for sure!)...

Very happy with the 10k reps session, the one minute improvement there and the 44 resting heart rate huge positives.
So the Nine challenges remaining;
1-need a new watch
2-90% sure I need new shoes
3-both bikes are barely operational.
4-a couple more reps sessions would be nice although the most important one is on the board as of 24/6/07.
5-my race times have been mediocre/poor mostly so far in 2007.
6-the whole baby,work,money,bills thing is proving to be tougher than expected, and hoping for things to just stabilise a bit more in that department in the coming weeks.....
7-I'd like to nail 1-2 more timetrials over 10-20km next week.
8-I'd like to get one more decent long run of at least 19-22km next weekend.
9-I'd like to keep best weekly resting heart rate under 46 for the next 2 weeks.