31 December, 2004

Friday 31/12/2004

Last day of the year and something positive to report. I did my programmed 50 min run this morning, exactly the same circuit as last Friday. Last Friday's time was 57:49 for the 11.3K. Today's time was 51:49. This is not a PB for this course but the I am pretty pleased with the improvement from last week.

I have been finding the combination of speed work and long runs is hard going. In training for the 2004 Gold Coast and Sydney Marathons I didn't include any speed work at all but was doing better times on the circuits I run from home. Then again I wasn't able to run a sub 20 5K either - this I have achieved since doing speed training. I am hoping that by the Canberra Marathon I will see the fruits of the speed work/long run combination in improved times over the long distances. I am not setting Canberra as a goal for big time improvements because of my intention to do the Ultra but the 2005 Gold Coast Marathon is the race where I will be looking for the big reduction from 2004's 3:22. Is sub 3:00 achievable for this almost 53 year old? Ray James did it - but when I see the times he is achieving I reckon I have a lot of work to do.

Bring on 2005. Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!

3 comments:

Horrie said...

Eddie, you have made big improvements in your times over 5km and 10km. I am sure you will take a big chunk off your marathon time as well. You have a great coach so if you continue to follow Pat's mantra, 3 hours is within reach. As for Ray's training, it is very impressive but he does most of his training at high intensity, which does vary with Pat's methods. The important thing is to be consisent in your training and remaining injury free. If you achieve that, you will continue to improve. Happy New Year.

Rob said...

Thanks Horrie.

Superflake said...

Well done Eddie on the big drop in time in a week.
Both long runs once a week and your speed work should put you on the right path to a lower marathon time.