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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Speed Workouts and the FIRST (3Plus2) Plan


I'm getting ready to start full-throttle on the 3Plus2 (FIRST) plan.

When I plugged in my goal marathon time (3:35:00) the speed workouts it gave me seemed a bit pokey.  I'd been doing my speedwork at 4:00/km last year (for 5x1000m), and did a 20:05 5k... it was suggesting 4:06/km for 4x800m!  Seemed slow.

But seems like the extra few pounds I'm carrying around (plus Christmas gorging!) have made those paces a wee bit tougher than I thought.

Today I did 4x800 @ 4:06/km with 2:00 rests.  I got through them all and kept the pace to the last one, but much more of a struggle than I'd have guessed.

Split 1: 4:02/km, 181bpm max
Split 2: 4:07/km, 185bpm max
Split 3: 4:04/km, 186bpm max
Split 4: 406/km, 189bpm max

The 2:00 rests felt pretty short, despite knocking my pace wayyy back to a slow jog (6:30/km+).  These were my first track intervals in a long time, though, so that's probably to be expected, body needs to adjust to it again.

Ultimately the main thing I need to focus on beyond paces and such is my weight.  I want to race in the low 170's, I'm about 10 pounds from that (and 4 months to race day).  Pretty sure I can knock off a pound a week without too much trouble, especially with 5 workouts a week, but I really need to focus on that.

First week of "real" training starts Monday!

4 comments:

John C said...

4:06/km isn't slow. especially if training for a 3:35. You don't NEED to go super fast sprint pace for this goal. You need to do tempos at lactate threshold which would be more like your half mary pace and your intervals at about your 10k pace.

Mind you its fun as heck to run at your 5k pace. But again, to hit your full mary goal you don't need to.

and risky to run that fast.

Mostly my opinion above. Good luck Jon.

Jon P said...

Thanks Johnny! :) You have an interesting definition of "fun"... I was thinking it was more "torture"!

I'm using the FIRST training plan thingie, so doing things a bit different this time. It calls for a lot of speedwork (track & tempo every week). I'll see how it goes.

Double Bellybuster said...

Keep your carbs high when losing weight - I always forget that and end up without energy some run days.

Jon P said...

beer's a carb, right?