anatomy of a long run

today i helped an axslz athlete, dragan, with his long run as he had to test his fitness for marathon next weekend.

i gave him a 30km “tempo” run. i think, as ole thought me, that 30km is too much as it ends up being longer than 2h. i myself ever felt good after such long runs and limit for me is 25km or aroun 1h 40min for the long run. i do not feel i need more. i feel its better i run it faster than longer. i gain nothing by adding length (and i am training for really long races).

but i felt dragan needs the 30km tempo run for his confidence. eventually i hope he will learn that if he run 25km well he will run marathon well and he will know exactly what to do, but that level of experience requires another year of training and racing maybe.

the goal for today’s run was:

5km @ 4:45/km
5km @ 4:30-4:40/km
10km @ 4:30
5km @ 4:20-4:30
5km whatever is left

goal was to finish 30km under 2h 15min which is 4:30/km pace. we needed garmin 310xt to show 4:29/km because it calculates the average by rounding on smaller, rather than bigger numbers.

i wanted to run with dragan all the way and see how he copes with the distance and tempo. he is quite fit. we executed the pacing perfectly in spite of rain and wind and boredom. we did two stops for drink – at 10 and 20km. i had 250ml coke each time.

dragan seemed to feel great.

i was totally messed up. i went ot bed at 4am and woke up at 7am to run. it was one of those mornings when waking up was actually a painful experience and pain just kept on going on. running was easy, i literally felt sick how sleepy and tired i was.

the run was perfectly done and everything by the book. i love the progressive long tempo runs. i think they are super good sessions, especially when done in company of someone with similar level of fitness.

however i was so destroyed by lack of sleep that my whole day was miserable. also my massage girl is out of town and i desperately needed a massage for my ass (sciatic nerve).

another day in the office.