Training, training, training.

[Riazor Blue]

I've been doing a bit of training since Ourense.

Nothing spectacular, mind. Like thousands in the UK I have been waiting on tenterhooks to see if I had made it through the ballot for the London Marathon. Sadly the bank statement arrived yesterday without a cheque being cashed on 29th October. So that's that then.

Despite all I said earlier in the year about how training for a marathon takes too much time etc, etc, etc... I still fancy doing one so I'm eyeing up Madrid again.

So, what of this training I hear you ask? I have taken the plunge and have started to use an HRM. Can I see benefits? Well, I think I can. All this slow running stuff, it would seem that I had been running even slower than I should have been. So that's good then. With the HRM I am now running the easy paced stuff at 5:20 per kilometer, I think my easy stuff before was at around 5:50.

The debate now is whether I should use Working Heart Rate or Maximum Heart Rate. The consensus is tipping things in favour of WHR which means I can up the pace a tad more.

I have just started adding some faster paced work to sharpen up a little for the half marathon on 12th December. Last week I added a hill session and a session of 12 X 1:30" at 95% which worked very well. This week I'll do a run at 85% and a session of 8 X 1km. The week before the half I will do a couple of short runs at pace then that will be it for this year. It... in the sense of any sort of speed work. It'll be back to basics and working on aerobic fitness, a couple of months of that should work wonders for Madrid.