RHR 42! a SB A course PB and preparing for new baby

Highlights;
1. Resting Heartrate down to 42 on Friday,
2. weight down to 78.0kg on Wednesday, and
3. on MOnday I ran a 32 second improvement on my previous PB for my 3.5k course with a 15.39 at 4.28 per K pace...
4. Fremantle Dockers did it again knocking off Brisbane at the Gabba for the first time in 15 years!, to nail down either 2nd or 3rd spot on the ladder, with a games gap between us and Geelong,Sydney. unbiased (cough cough) natch report here! :-)The next two games against the Eddiewoods and the sydney swines are the purple armys chance to really make a top 2-4 spot and potentially even minor premiers look very likely.

5.eagles finally managed to win another game, which means getting the wooden spoon for them is unlikely now, and making the finals is still mathematically possible, even plausible, if they can step things up a little...another unbiased (cough cough) match report probably here.

This week has turned into a fizzer..i.e.my hopes of nailing some big sessions fizzled out.
So very disappointing to have another failure week...I think I am taking periodising from one extreme to the other e.g. 300min training last week, and 51 minutes this week, talk about slightly hard week and pathetically easy week. Just finding it very hard to find the 1-3 hour slots of time I need to put in some big sessions. I dont like doing half-baked 5k runs but thats about all I am finding time for, so thats all I did this week was 3 short tune-ups. Never really got out there long enough to put in a good session, there was always something of a higher priority, today I had to choose between doing a long run and going to visit my mum for mothers day, so I chose to give the run a miss. In the morning I had to choose between changing my 3 year olds nappy, getting him a milo milk, and sleeping in a bit or going on a long run, and I chose the former as well. In the mid morning I spent time taking 3 year old to see ducks, and to the shops. Maybe I just need to toughen up, or get my 38 weeks pregnant wife to do more stuff in the mornings, but its hard to get the right balance...

Worked pretty hard this week, and am focused on the struggle to try and pay the rent, and maybe make inroads into the mountainous tsnuami of bills that is crashing over our heads, while trying to make sure my wife is well prepared for the birth of our second child. Due date is mid May, so really it could come any week now...She is doing really well, and looks like that is going to go well. But both my jobs really are terrible at the moment. I think things will pick up for us from July onwards, but getting past the next 6-8 weeks, especially until I find a good new job is going to be a major challenge and I am praying for some minor miracles/breakthroughs. Things can change so quickly for the better in just a day or two, but right now it all seems a bit hopelessly desperate.

So 3 short runs this week. The first one was race type intensity and have to be happy with a massive course PB in that one, and the other two runs were pretty pathetic, and I didnt really attack at all in them.

Sunday Ran for 10 minutes with my Dad who is in his mid 60's and who I have recently been able to persuade to start running again after several decades of inactivity at that level from him.

A bit fartlekish (which is good) as I ran hard early to catch up to him as I didnt realise Dad had gone until 3-5 minutes after he had left the house, and then slow jog with him...Mostly low intensity, felt like I was moving very well though...feel primed to run extremely well if I get the opportunity in the next few days...

Thursday Ran for 25min HR 129 just trying to clear my messed up head after a tough evening at work the night before. It worked. Short on time available, and exploring local trails and roads. Unsure of distance, and dont really care.

Monday Ran 3.5km in 15.39 (4.28 per Km) HR 183 at end.
Did 5-laps of course on local oval.
700m splits; 3.07/ 3.13/ 3.02/ 3.17/ 3.00

Massive PB by 32 seconds!
Very pleasing to negative split with my fastest 700m being my last one, and I feel like I didnt really sprint hard for the finish line so probably could have found a few more seconds.
I think this PB will drop further a lot if I keep progressing the way I am.

Pretty slow start really as my PB for this 700m course is 2.34 which I did earlier this year. That combined with the 2.46 800m I did the other week at Coker Park, plus the fact that I know I can go faster than that for the 800m if I work on it, means that 3.07 for 700m is a pretty cruisy start for me on this course here and now. Wasn't sure what to expect but by the second lap I knew I was going ok and feeling very fresh, so made sure I worked hard on the 3rd lap (3.02), and then tried to hold a pretty solid pace on the 5th lap (3.00) without really kicking hard for home...So a 32 second PB with a slow start, pretty average 2nd and 4th laps, and good but not that fast 3rd and 5th laps. Guess it was a lot more even splits than previous runs, and I am certainly running at a higher level and feeling fitter! than what I was running at a few months ago...

Ive run this 700m course many times, and it just felt heaps easier this time, could be because I ran more evenly, didn't start as hard, or because my weight is starting to drop, and my resting heart rate is also dropping both indicators the 32k I did last week, and some solid metering rounds where I have pushed the pace, and a conscious effort to eat a little less, I dont know one or all or some of those factors must be paying off...whatever it is, I am certainly on the march this week, and based on the RHR of 42 (on Friday...the best for this year so far), and my weight being 78.0kg (Wednesday..also my best this year) I feel I am about 2-3 weeks good training off getting back to the level I was at for Melbourne Marathon 2009, in terms of general fitness and ability to run 5-10k fast.

However I know that doesnt automatically translate into a good marathon time. I still need to work on running 16-25K fast , and also to log some more 30k+ long runs. However I have already got a reasonably solid base of long runs maintained throughout 2010, and I know I would finish a marathon easily with a good drinks and carbs strategy right now, so I think the key from here is doing some good 16k-25k work, some more reps/intervals work as a secondary priority, plus a couple more long runs to maintain what Ive been doing all year, and then taper for a week or two, and get it right on race day.