Update on my 800m training – Feb / Mar 2023

Winter training isn’t fun if the weather isn’t amenable to it. And it hasn’t been. We seem to have had windy, cloudy days through Feb and March. Fortunately not much rain although that doesn’t particularly bother me. But when you’re trying to do longer intervals or steady runs and track improvement week-to-week, windy is frustrating.

I came into these months looking to build endurance ready for a half marathon on April 2^nd. I’m generally very pleased with how this training block has turned out although, as they say, the proof will be in the pudding. Let’s see how the actual race goes.

I did the race last year scraping under 1hr34 which was my fastest half marathon in almost ten years. While results-wise that is pleasing, I didn’t run my best race, my best running was left in training. On race day my legs had gone. They were heavy and lethargic and I couldn’t push any faster than 6:40/mile at any point. This despite having averaged 6:32/mile for three two-mile efforts on March 15^th. The aim was to avoid that this year.

I went with the same training plan as last year but started the long interval build-up two weeks earlier to give myself more time for a longer taper. On Fridays I did my Steady hour run on the flats of the beach promenade whereas last year I ran a hilly local route. The knock-on of this latter point, as I shall explain later, is I ran quicker parkruns immediately the day after.

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Below in the tables are the sessions I ran last year and this. You can see on the first week my mile repeats are very similar – both averaging around 6:55/mile with the first mile quick and then a slide as the endurance ebbs away. In the following weeks the body gets better at stamina work – holding a fast pace for longer and the efforts improve.

Last year		Effort 1	2	3	4	5	6	Total	Pace
15-Feb	6x1mile	6:49	6:52	6:52	6:54	6:45	7:02	41:14	6:53
22-Feb	4×1½ mile	10:02	10:09	10:01	10:11			40:23	6:44
1-Mar	3×2 mile	13:16	13:19	13:28				40:03	6:41
8-Mar	2×3 mile	19:42	20:24					40:06	6:40
15-Mar	3×2 mile	12:54	13:04	13:12				39:12	6:32
22-Mar	4×1½ mile	9:55	9:59	9:56	9:58			39:48	6:38

This year		Effort 1	2	3	4	5	6	Total	Pace
31-Jan	6x1mile	6:45	6:54	6:55	6:56	6:59	7:05	41:36	6:56
7-Feb	4×1½ mile	10:02	10:19	10:26	10:33			41:20	6:53
14-Feb	3×2 mile	13:11	13:50	14:16				41:17	6:53
21-Feb	2×3 mile	20:07	20:34					40:41	6:47
28-Feb	3×2 mile	13:31	14:53	14:35				42:59	7:10
7-Mar	4×1½ mile	9:44	9:56	10:06	10:16			40:02	6:40
14-Mar	6x1mile	6:25	6:35	6:34	6:42	6:49	6:55	40:00	6:40

While the general improvement seen is similar, this year’s numbers were behind last year’s. While the weather wasn’t perfect, I can’t blame that. There was something else at work. What these numbers don’t show is the effort being put in. While I could add heart-rate data, that doesn’t really show it either.  This year my heart-rate has generally been 2-3 beats lower on these efforts which chimes with the slightly slower pace.

What’s not revealed is the effort I was putting in. When I ran last year’s effort, I would overcook them and go anaerobic. Gasping for breath in latter efforts and pushing hard to keep the pace up. I might have expected that effort to show up in higher max heart-rates, if not the average, but it doesn’t which is why I’ve moved away from gadget / data-driven training. This year I deliberately tried to keep my pace under control by focusing on my breathing and not pushing my self too hard. I still pushed hard but not too hard.

As a sidenote, it’s worth explaining what happened in the session on 28^th February. The local roads were being dug up to install higher speed broadband cable so I went to the beach. I had hopes this would be quick as it’s on the flat but it was windy. Even so I set it up to have the benefit of the wind on two of my three efforts but my legs had nothing. On reflection, I was suffering a VO2 lull so I just tried to get through it as best I could. Trouble is, I also misprogrammed my watch and instead of having a 0.5mile recovery, the next effort started after 0.05mile which had only taken about thirty seconds to jog! I had to reprogramme the session on the fly and guesstimate the recovery. All in all it was, what we technically call, a balls-up. It would have been easy to get downhearted about the day’s numbers, but after all these years of running I have learned it is just part of the process.

Fridays and parkruns

I consider the hour long Friday sessions to be an important part of building endurance. They highlight where aerobic speed is at. This year’s sessions weren’t as fast as other years but what was incredible was going to parkrun the following day and running decent times. Last year my parkrun was around 24-25 minutes following a Steady run; in 2019 it was more like 27-28mins. That said, I think last year’s hilly route took more out of my legs but perhaps also provided the extra ounce of speed I was seeing in the long intervals.

	Distance	Run Time	Pace per mile	Fastest mile	Parkrun
3-Feb	8 miles	1:02:18	7:47	7:09	22:53 Upton
10-Feb	9	1:07:00	7:24	6:43	22:22 Upton
17-Feb	9	1:12:24	8:00	7:29	21:53 Upton
24-Feb	9	1:06:24	7:20	6:58	21:19 Poole
1-Mar	9	1:04:22	7:06	6:59	21:44 Upton
10-Mar	9	1:05:26	7:13	6:40	21:17 Upton
17-Mar	8	1:00:18	7:31	7:11	Tapering
24-Mar	6 (local)	42:00	7:00	6:52	Tapering
26-Mar	7½ (fasted)	54:59	7:23	6:56	Tapering

One reason why I’ve moved away from data-driven training is that some of my endurance days are coming in at relatively low heart-rates yet I’m not racing significantly quicker. My 21:19 at Poole averaged 6:50/mile at a heart-rate of 147bpm – well below the 152HR I consider to be the top of my pure aerobic for a Steady run. I’m hopeful these numbers point to capacity for getting quicker in the summer but I think they actually point to simply having better endurance which is not that important in a shorter distance race especially the 800m which I’m targeting.

Recovery

The notable improvement in my running seems to have come in recovery. While not every session has been as hoped for, my average speed through the week has been improving. Being able to run fast on Tuesday, on Friday, on Saturday and then sub-8 on my long runs is a far cry from where I was a few years back. I could barely run 8-miles at a sub-8 pace once in a week. On top of the effort days, my recoveries have generally been approaching or faster than 8min/mile – a few years ago these would have been well over 9min/mile.

I think this has been the route of the problem. Running easy runs too fast – it is a perennial problem among runners – I can screw it up as well as anyone! Although the runs are manageable and haven’t been causing me any pain, I think they have been creating muscle damage and fatigue. That explains why I can’t run faster in actual workouts. Again, the data isn’t good enough – my heart-rates on runs have been low enough to be classed as recovery but the tech can’t measure muscle damage directly. We can only infer it from how training is going.

In the middle of March I made a decision to go slower on my recovery runs and I think it was the right one. Along with the taper my legs have begun to perk up.

The final workout

I did my final workout on Tuesday. I call it a workout but it wasn’t there for training effect, only to keep the legs reminded of what’s coming up. I did a 30-min Steady run with a half mile effort dropped in after two miles. The two mile warm-up came in at 7:10 pace and then the half mile was unexpectedly quick. It came in at three mins exactly – 6min/mile pace. I did push it a little towards the end but considering I went straight into it off the warmup I was pleased with it. Thinking back to December 2020 and my first 800m time trial that’s essentially what I ran that day – except I had fresh legs and my lungs burned for an hour afterwards. This time I jogged home and got on with life

Half marathon on Sunday April 2nd

The rest of the week has been some easy 30-min jogs and rest days. I’m hoping the 800 wasn’t too much of a shock for the legs. If it was, it’s probably not going to go well and I’ll be left rueing it but at least knowing I’m set up for excellent spring training.

I’m not sure what to expect on Sunday. I believe my stamina is better than last year and therefore I will record a better time. Last year I struggled because of the misjudged taper, this year I’ve hopefully corrected that. The weather forecast is decent – sunny with 7-8mph wind – I probably can’t ask for much more than that. Let’s see what happens.