h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Tuesday is long run day. That’s the day the training plan I’m following calls for a run of extended distance over the distance you intend to race. That’s to say if I’m racing 5k then the ‘long’ run should be something of the order of 5 to 6 miles at a pace a bit under that you are intending to race at. The theory is that it it should ‘put the distance in your legs’ and enable you to maintain a higher racing pace throughout the race without any tailing off of effort in the closing mile/half mile.

For the most part I’m trying to get a good time over the parkrun distance of 5k. That translates to 3.1 miles in English money. We’ll forget the 0.1 for the time being while we compare complete miles. My long run course is a loop of just under 6 miles. (5.84 to be exact) within the confines of a Richmond Park. The first half, up to 3 miles is fairly flat and at that point it it goes into a slight but persistent incline until it joins onto the last half of the actual parkrun course, which is of course the hilly bit.

Lately I’ve been using a heart rate monitor to bring some method to the sessions rather than the more subjective ‘how it feels’ approach. The methodology is to run aerobically at a pace that keeps the heart rate in between 75%-85% of maximum for the steady distances and just submaximal for the hills, with a slowing of pace to recoup back to below 85% on the rest period between hills.

All started reasonable well with three miles at a fairly consistent pace. The numbers on the HRM stayed where they should be until I hit the incline at 3 miles where they began to climb forcing a cut in the pace to the first hill. I quite enjoyed the effort on the hill, running determinedly, keeping the cadence going but chopping the stride a bit. At the crest of the first hill I was at about 90% maximal pace and able to keep going at a jog while I watch the numbers fall back to a sustainable level.

The remainder of the hills were tougher and required a lot more perceived effort. On each of them I overshot the HRM level to the maximum. That meant having to walk to recover in time for the next one. The last hill to the course finish is shorter and nastier than the others. It becomes increasingly steeper right up to the finish while the actual surface is a rutted track that makes foot placement critical. The final bit is a short jog back to the car park to recover, more stretching, hopefully to prevent stiff muscles later.

The first 3 miles of the run had been covered in a time that I was struggling to achieve during the actual parkrun only a couple of months ago. The second half took rather longer due to the rest periods included in the time, but the hills were run up rather than struggled up as they were before. So hopefully there’s some sort of improvement going on.