Fast Finish to Brighton - Oxford Half Marathon Training Diary - Week 5

Posted on: 10 September 2024

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

2nd - 8th September

  • Total volume: 80km (3.4k football)
  • Longest run: 23km
  • Average resting & max HR: 40 / 157
  • Average bed time: 22:56
  • Easy / hard split: 80/20
  • Tanda marathon race predictor: 3:12:23 (🔽 00:01:59)
  • Training VDOT: 53.9

Oxford week 5 plan

Monday

Today proved too tricky to get a 7km run in during the day as I was on full-time Dad duty with my son. The nursery era has ended, but the school era has yet to begin. We had fun on a drizzly day walking and cycling. I managed to get a 3.5km warm up run in around Hove Park before football.

I wasn’t feeling great today, I could feel the beginnings of a head cold coming on throughout the day. My first clue was my higher than usual resting HR when I woke up; up from 38 to 40. Football probably wasn’t the best medicine, but at least night temperatures were still pleasant. Football was a much better runabout than last week. I registered a 73 relative effort, despite only running 3.4km. It turned out to be a good match.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a hard day. I woke up feeling worse but somehow managed to struggle through a day of work. My only venture outside was mid-afternoon, for my prescribed 13km recovery run. It was hard going and the pace felt much harder than usual. 10bpm higher HR confirmed it was a hard effort for my body in its current state. A 61 relative effort (double what an equivalent run is usually for me) backed this up.

I don’t know if this run was the best idea, but I was pleased I got it in and was able to stay on-plan for now.

Wednesday

Thankfully, I woke up feeling a bit better after an early night. I had another day of father-son time, so my workout for the day was pushed to the atypical time of 6pm. This workout was 4 x 4 minutes at VO2 Max pace, followed by 5 x 30 second strides. I was pretty apprehensive about the run given yesterday’s so I popped a Beta gel (40g of carbohydrates) before starting. I wore the Endorphin Pros as I wanted to give it a proper go.

It turned out great. I hit all my paces after starting relatively conservative. 3:46, 3:42, 3:39 and 3:38, with 3 minute walk/jog recoveries. I felt strong. The strides burned me out a little more. I was breathing hard in between reps and was glad to see the end of them after finishing the fifth rep.

A steady warm up and cool down capped a strong workout with fast paces. I averaged 4:29/km over 15km. Right on track for the week.

Thursday

Thursday was my allocated rest day this week. My wife and I had a day planned sightseeing in London with our son. A bonding day just the 3 of us before he goes off to school. It was a lovely day, but exhausting being in the big city. I all but collapsed when I got home.

Friday

Friday was my second workout of the week. A fartlek with a threshold block to finish. I made this workout up, but I was really pleased with how it felt. 10 x 1 minute at faster than VO2 Max pace. I was aiming for around 3:30/km. This felt really fast for me, and the pace varied due to an undulating (but predominantly flat) route. For the recoveries I tried to maintain a light job to keep the effort high. 1 minute on; 1 minute off.

After another minute standing rest, I entered into 10 minutes @ threshold pace (4:00/km). It’s amazing how manageable this pace can feel after the 3:30/km reps. It did start to catch up with me by the end, but overall the 10 minutes felt strong and controlled. I averaged 4:27/km over 13.1km total.

Saturday

Saturday was an easy 11km. I was feeling pretty good so pushed the pace a bit more than usual, but tried to keep my heart rate under 140bpm. Sometimes on the slightly monotonous easy runs you have to create a little game to get through it. I was definitely saving myself for the big long run on Sunday morning.

I finished the afternoon off with some squats, benchpress and barbell rows in the garage.

Sunday

I’d been nervously watching the weather forecast all week as I was keen to do this 23km long run as close to race starting time as possible. Fortunately, the rain mostly held off but for a bit of drizzle. I’d decided on a route over the downs and into Brighton - something I’d done last summer and enjoyed. It was a tough bit of elevation in the first 9km, but after that pretty plain sailing into Brighton, albeit off-road.

I took 2 gels with me, a caffeine SIS isotonic (22g carbs) and a SIS beta fuel (40g carbs). I took the caffeine gel early, around 3km, to try and get the mental benefit, and the second gel around 75 minutes in.

My legs felt really achy on the uphills of this run, but as soon as I was on top of the hills, I felt great. I hit Preston Park around 18km in, did a lap, then when the watch hit 90 minutes, I started a block of 10 minutes at race pace. My legs were tingling at the increase in pace, but felt OK. Aerobically the pace felt reasonably comfortable, which I was very pleased with.

I finished with 5 minutes at as close to 10k race pace as I could. I didn’t quite hit 3:55/km, but I got close and it was mentally tough. But it felt like great practice for a sprint finish at the end of the race. Given I had 21km and a lot of elevation in my legs, I was thrilled to hit those paces for 5 minutes. I caught my breath and did a cooldown to get up to 23km.

I stretched out, bought and drank some Huel, and caught my train home from Preston Park station. A great training run. A big confidence-booster.

Overall

A really positive week overall, with some shaky illness at the start that threatened to derail my plans. Fortunately, I was able to sidestep it hit all my runs as planned.

I lopped close to 2 minutes off my Tanda marathon prediction, mostly owed to this week replacing the week I spent in Wales doing slow, hilly trail running. But it’s still nice to see this continuing to trend in the right direction. My average pace is also now down to 4:50/km.

Easy/hard split was a perfect 80/20, and average bedtime again earlier than 11pm. Resting HR was understandably higher due to illness. I hope to see this creep back down to my baseline 38 over the next week or two.

I didn’t have time to boulder this week, but did get 2 strength/mobility sessions in.

Tags: running health sleep