The tapering phase has begun and it’s time to put the feet up and relax. After my crash on the weekend I’m still not at 100% but in the remaining 2 days I hope to get completely fit. There is still some pain in my back and also the abdominal muscles are a bit sore. Let’s hope I can recover in time and have a pain-free race on Saturday at the German Halfmarathon Championships. Information about the race (including the entry lists/Teilnehmerliste) can be found from here.
April in general will be pretty busy in terms of running. A competition is scheduled for every weekend, that are:
04.04. German Halfmarathon Championships
11.04. Osterlauf Paderborn (GER/10K)
18.04. Karhu Viesti (FIN/road relay)
25.04. Finnish Halfmarathon Championships
But first of all it will be off to Germany tomorrow early in the morning (at 5AM).
Last week I was a bit lazy blogging, so here comes a short summary of what happened training-wise in my life. Everything went more or less smooth until Sunday morning. I had some faster sessions on Monday (4×3.000m indoors) and Thursday (on/off kilometers-altogether 5 slow and 5 fast one). Even if the quality was not too high and the achieved speed was half-marathon pace or even slower, I was pretty satisfied. Last autumn I did not do any track workouts at all but I still ended up running 30:34 for 10K (with altitude camp though). This winter I did some 400, 800, 1000 and 3000 meter repetitions and the leg turnover should be better than last autumn.
So, the week was quite good until Sunday. We had a lot of sun the previous week and only on Saturday evening it started snowing again. As I woke up on Sunday the streets were again white and a thin layer of snow covered the ground. About 15minutes into my easy morning run it suddenly happened on a downhill part: I did not see the ice under the snow and with in 2 steps I found myself on the concrete. With my back and head first I hit the ground and was almost knocked out – Oooch. It took my about 10 seconds to breathe again and I was lying on the ground without moving what felt like a minute. Thousand thought went through my head, anything from “you just got yourself a ticket to hospital” to “great, 1 week before the German Championships you are lying on the ground”. After some minutes of recovering from the shock and being on my feet again, some caring Finns told me that there was blood in my face: Great, I had a laceration on the head.
As I realised today (after seeing a doctor) I was lucky that things didn’t turn out worse. Except for the laceration, which already is healing I have no severe injuries or hematoma on the head. Still I couldn’t move my head for the last days and it’s getting better only slowly. Of course also training suffered and I had to skip and reduce trainings. Since it is less than one week to race day this is alright, because the main work is done anyway. Now it’s all about recovering both from the crash and the tough training from the last weeks.
Today, as previously written, some interval training was on the program after an easy Wednesday and a smooth thursday morning 9K.
The program was 2x5x800m (200m jog/5min rec.) + 1000m on indoor track. The times I ran were anything but spectacular with the 800s in 2:27-2:29min and the final 1K in 3:04. But what else can you expect in the middle of a 200K-week. The positive things I take away from this session were, (1) that I ran somewhere between 10K and halfmarathon aim-pace (for the first time in 2 weeks) and that (2) that the legs are ok and nothing is seriously hurting (the muscle soreness will go away soon). Sometimes I feel like I should have run a bit faster but running on my own I was not able to put the little extra on the track and leave the “comfort zone”. Anyway, I put some faster workout in the bank and I know that I can run at least 3:05min/km- pace for some time. After the horrible workout on monday (hurting a lot to run 4min-pace on hilly terrain) and the medium session on Tuesday at 3:20-pace I just got what I wanted: Getting faster with every workout. Now the hard work for this week is done (in terms of speed work). Only one more medium run – most probably on Saturday – and the usual kilometres on the other days.
Today’s song: Farin Urlaub with “Ich gehöre nicht dazu” – somehow that’s how I feel right now after having done the most of this weeks work. At some point the Video really sucks, but there is no official video for this song.
So I’m in another important week for the build-up to the spring season and already 60km are done (in 2 days) for this 200K-week. The start of the week was really bad and I experienced once again that even with 27 years and around 2 decades of running there are still some things that you have to learn. The thing is that I had the first medium-hard steady state run on monday morning. After an easy week without any fast running it should have been a good opener and I wanted to start rolling again. So far so good, but I made a biiig mistake: I went out for this session without a proper breakfast! Somehow I must have thought that I can survive the 19K (including 13K medium-hard tempo) with the glycogen stores that were still there after the night. Yeah, I thought so … After 6K I didn’t think that way anymore and after 14K I was sure that I made a huge mistake. The run turned out to be a absolute disaster. I was dying at 4min/km-pace and hardly made it back home. Of course that was not the kind of start I expected for this important period and I’m still wondering how stupid I am to do those kind of things (i.e. going out for a tough session on an empty stomach).
Anyway, today I didn’t make the same mistake for the 2nd fast training of the week but still I’m not 100% satisfied. I ran on a flat course around the lake and the workout consisted of 2K(6:42)+1K rec.(4:20)+3K(10:28)+1K rec.(4:20)+3K(6:41). At least it was sub-4min pace but the halfmarathon aim-pace is 3:10min/km. The legs are a bit tired to run fast and the whole body is a bit tense. Let’s hope it’s going to get better soon. Tomorrow (Wed) just easy mileage and Thursday some intervals. Hopefully I can put the hammer down then …
Today’s music: Sportfreunde Stiller with Ich Roque
My “recovery” week is almost over and I can feel that I did some good. Not only the legs and all the joints are free of trouble, but also the mind is getting ready for the new tasks ahead.
The conditions outside are really sh…$%& and it’s not too much fun to run. A nice layer of ice covered by fresh, floury snow – I’m so lucky that I don’t have to run fast in those conditions. A 10K run in 4min/km-pace was the fastest exercise this week so far, i.e. all easy going. I spent the extra time that I gained by running less kilometres in the gym and hopefully this will also help me to get over the last cycle of intense training in a healthy way. I didn’t even get too much of soreness in my muscles so it seems there is already something – or is there no pain because there are no muscles?
Anyway, now that it seems that spring is still some weeks away I’m preparing myself to go on treadmill or on indoor track for most of next weeks workouts.
Today I’m also starting to upload some music. As it is an easy week for me, I’m also listening to somewhat relaxing music with some good lyrics (sorry it’s in German).
There we go. Another 200km-week down and rising temperatures here in Finland. Last days were pretty sunny (had a beautiful 22k-run in the bright sun on Sunday) and temperatures were rising above zero during daytime. That means: at some point it was possible to run on concrete pavement – yeah, that’s what a road runner needs. On the other hand there are now large parts that are icy and running on those streets is no fun at all. Hopefully next week will bring some more melting temperatures, so that at least the streets and sidewalks are snow and ice free. I guess it will take some more time until the 50cm of snow will disappear but I don’t have anything against some white spots in the environment.
This weeks training went quite alright. I made my first 400s since a long time (15×400 in 70secs with 200 jog-recovery) on indoor track and had good legs the day after. Unfortunately I missed a test competition because I couldn’t get a ride and since I didn’t want to bike the 15-20km to the start (each direction from and from to home) I decided to skip the race.
Next week is meant to get some freshness back after 3 petty tough weeks. “Only” 170 easy kilometres should get me ready for the last 2 weeks of intense training before the competition period.
In exactly one month’s time, on April 4, the first major competition 2009 is going to take place for me. It will be the German Halfmarathon Championships. Last year I took 7th place with a time of 1:07:42h and I’m on a good way to improve the time and hopefully also the placement. Compared to last year the training values of 2009 are equal or even better. Quality is still lacking a bit, since I don’t really like to do tempo runs like 400m or 1K repetitions. On the other hand the mileage is just where it should be. Last week I just scratched on the 200K-mark and also this week I’ll run 200K if everything is going according to the plan. The steady-state runs feel good and on the medium-hard runs (like 15K @3:40min/km) the legs feel good. Now the temperatures here in Finland are also on the race and I just hope that I can get some fast kilometres on the concrete. So far almost all the runs are on snow and ice, which meant that biomechanics (stride length, frequency and posture) on the slippery ground were not optimal. But for the base work it’s alright and I don’t wanna complain about the conditions – I still have the opportunity of running indoors or on the treadmill.
The long silence on marathonscene.com that lasted for the last couple of weeks was due to a change to a new webspace provider and the move to a new server. Now the site successfully moved and step by step the reports will appear again. However, there still might be some difficulties in accessing some parts of the website and other technical issues.
On Wednesday my “home holiday” was over and it was time to move to my second home in Finland. Thanks to running mate Jarno aka moguli I didn’t had to sleep on the Tampere railway station this time (as I did in 07 when I missed the last train to Jyväskylä).
Even if I lost some kilometers due to the travel I’m now feeling good and ready for the next intensive training period. Unfortunately there is not so much snow here in central Finland at the moment and I have to postpone the planned cross-country skiing training. Until now that is still ok, because I don’t have any major problems with feet, knees or back because of some good physiotherapy I got in Germany. Skiing is a perfect alternative exercise method and you can even sharpen the shape with a well-planned training. However, until the first important competitions in April it’s not so far anymore and the time is running short, because the last weeks before the season the focus is (of course) on running specific training.
The training in Germany went pretty well and I could increase mileage to around 160-170km/week. After week 1 in 2009 when I had 4 fast exercises (3 competitions + 1 medium fartlek) I was a bit tired and decreased the intensity but now I gained freshness again and already did 2 good workouts this week. The fitness is a bit better than at the same time last year and once I get rid of some extra kilos that I got over the Christmas holiday, running should get even easier.
Ok. Now I made some changes on my website and the posts from the category “Eriks marathonscene” are not shown on the homepage (start page) anymore. So from now on I will post more often in this category and describe the training, some old running stories and just my current thoughts about random topics. I’ll also include some more pics and videos in this section, so check back regularly.
but the halfmarathon aim-pace is 3:10min/km. The legs are a bit tired to run fast and the whole body is a bit tense. Let’s hope it’s going to get better soon. Tomorrow (Wed) just easy mileage and Thursday some intervals. Hopefully I can put the hammer down then …