HM Distance Away From Home - Oxford Half Marathon Training Diary - Week 3

Posted on: 27 August 2024

This post is part of a 10-part series charting my training block for the Oxford Half Marathon 2024.

19th - 25th August

  • Total volume: 81.7km (4km football)
  • Longest run: 22km
  • Average resting & max HR: 38 / 156
  • Average bed time: 23:06
  • Easy / hard split: 76/24
  • Tanda marathon race predictor: 3:14:57 (đź”˝ 00:01:22)
  • Training VDOT: 53.9

Oxford Week 3 Plan

Monday

Monday I had a day off work to celebrate my wife and my anniversary. We had a morning in a spa then a wander round Brighton in the afternoon. A tiring day all told, especially given recovery from Sunday’s 11-a-side. No time for a run, so I fell back to my trusty warm up round Hove park. I arrived early so was able to complete a decent 3.8km - 2 laps of the park - at a nice easy pace. Felt surprisingly good considering I was contemplating an early night a few hours before.

6-a-side football was good, a close match and the pace a little slower than usual. I logged 4km of running during football, which brought me up to 7.8 for the day.

Tuesday

Tuesday I pushed the distance a little with a 10.3km run on a round road route to Hassocks. My easy runs are regularly coming in below 5:00/km pace, with heart rate in the low-to-mid 130s, which is a really promising sign fitness improving.

Wednesday

My second big workout with goal pace, this time 40 minutes total. A daunting prospect but one I was pleased to take on with Andy - my ever-present running partner. I went with my Endorphin Pro carbon racers again, to mimic race day conditions. We chose a reasonably flat course West of Hickstead where we could focus on pace but offer a bit of variety and stimulation compared to the 2km Jobs Lane loop.

This workout went great, better than I was expecting. We started with a ~3km warm up and went straight into a 30 minute block at my target race pace - 4:07/km. I popped a gel straight away to sustain me through the next 40 or so minutes. Andy lead the way, acting as a wind breaker, and I found the pace much more manageable than even a couple of weeks ago. The 30 minutes went back pretty quick. There were a few undulations and a strong headwind wind to deal with in parts, but we hit the pace and I felt strong.

After a short 2 minute walk/job rest, we entered into 10 minutes at my threshold pace - 4:00/km. This was Andy’s race pace coincidently, so it turned into a good training run for the both of us. Practising at faster than goal pace is a good training stimulus, aiming to make running AT goal pace feel easier. Running right at threshold pace also increases your anaerobic threshold (T2), increasing the time you can run at that pace without lactic acid forcing you to slow down.

Overall, a really positive workout and another big confidence booster. 145 Relative Effort on Strava confirmed it was a tough effort.

Thursday

I was somewhat recovering this day, but also happened to be unusually busy with work. As a result, my 11k easy run got squeezed into a 7km run late in the afternoon. I felt good on it though, surprisingly, and ended up running it as a steady progression run - aiming to get faster as the run progresses. My average pace was 4:46/km, with an average heart rate of 136!

Some believe that running between easy pace and aerobic threshold (T1) pace (slightly slower than marathon pace) constitutes "junk miles." This view suggests that training in this pace range offers little benefit to your body or fitness. I tend to go with the mantra of letting the body decide the pace and run on feel, especially on runs with no mandated paces.

If I’m feeling good, I’ll happily bump the the pace to my T1 pace (approximately around 4:30/km, but this is an estimate as I’ve had no formal lactate testing). I would classify these runs “steady” rather than “easy”.

Friday

As with last week, I ended up doing a short run on Friday instead of completely resting. I wanted to top up my weekly volume after cutting yesterday’s run short. I did a 5km out-and-back this day at 4:52/km. This was a tester for a niggle I’d developed overnight. My knee was sore when fully bent and fully extended. Fortunately running didn’t exacerbate my symptoms, and by the end of the week the discomfort had subsided.

Saturday

We spent Saturday morning travelling up to my parent’s house in Northamptonshire for the bank holiday weekend. I needed to shake the legs out and crank up the effort for the week, and had 5 x 1km intervals on my plan. Despite some pretty sketchy weather I headed out to complete the workout in a reasonably long and flat stretch of country road.

After a couple of heavy rainfalls later, and a decent volume of hard effort, I completed the run in just under an hour. Clocking in at a kilometre and a half longer distance than prescribed. The full workout was 5 x 1km @ VO2max pace and 5 x 30s strides. This one felt good, however because of the slight gradient, rep paces were variable and it was hard to just exactly how hard I was going.

I did this workout in my Endorphin Pro 3s again.

Sunday

Sunday again started with a 2km Junior Parkun, away from home this time. I’m a wannabe Parkrun tourist myself so it’s always fun to take in a new Parkrun. After a brief visit to my sister’s house in Rushden, I set out on my long run for the week, aiming for a half marathon - 21.1km at an easy pace.

This run started bright, on a scenic, flat track through Stanwick Lakes park. I settled into a 4:45/km pace, which felt natural and manageable. I took on a BETA gel around 45 minutes. A 3 slightly faster kilometres with some favourable elevation change, heavy legs from Saturday’s session kicked in around 15km. I was able to maintain pace until my route took me off road through a hilly field.

Onto the final 3.5km road section, I gradually wound the pace up again and finished strong with 2km at around marathon pace, albeit slightly downhill. I felt really good despite 22km in the legs. I could’ve carried on for longer with another gel, but I was overdue some family time and lunch beckoned. A promising sign though.

The run ended up being my 2nd fastest half marathon training distance run; I was really happy with it. Strava considered it a 102 RE, so certainly some headroom to push into there on fresher legs. 4:07/km is starting to feel like a very realistic race target.

Overall

I didn’t boulder again this week, going to London to watch Chelsea on the Thursday instead. This resulted in a very late night I tried to offset with earlier nights over the weekend. I got in a Ben Parkes’ strength session and a weight lifting session, and a minimal amount of cycling.

I’m feeling great. I again clocked higher than predicted volume for my 3rd week of the plan and I still feel I have more to give. I’m going to be sensible next week and take the prescribed recovery week as planned. After that, I want to hit weeks 5-7, the bulk of my plan, hard. So I’ll no doubt be tinkering this week with mileages and individual workouts to get the most out of my body.

I had planned for 83km to be my peak week volume, on week 7, however I was close to hitting that this past week, and with 23% quality effort as well. Currently the volume feels manageable, so I may push my peak week from 83 up to 90. Oxford Half is obviously the primary focus of this training block, but I have half an eye on Manchester Marathon next year. I’ll hopefully learn a lot about what works for me and what my body is capable of during these 10 weeks.

Tags: running health sleep