Week 4 Training Recap

It was an exhausting weekend and I felt so tired and sleepy after two consecutive days of long ride and long run. I guess I need to look at my nutrition and vitamin supplements. Last week, I have increased my run mileage as planned, did a total of 58 km. I was happy to have followed the distance as per my plan. Also, I was able to do a test ride on my newly acquired road bike (second hand) and did a 50km time trial.

Below was my running workout, I have been running 10k’s in 4 consecutive days. Waking up in the morning has been so difficult last week due to the cold weather. But I needed to remind myself of the Condura Run (where I hope to do a new PR for my 21k run), and not to waste the effort I did in building up my mileage. I was happy with the result last week as I was able to again improve my time for 10k at 1:03:15, this is my current PR for this distance. Hopefully, I get to improve this week. I am close to sub-60 mark.

Date / Distance / Time / Pace / Remarks

Jan 19 / 10 / 1:09:47 / 6:58 / Recovery Run

Jan 20 / 10 / 1:06:57 / 6:41 / Easy Run

Jan 21 / 10 / 1:03:15 / 6:19 / Tempo Run

Jan 22 / 10 / 1:04:40 / 6:28 / Easy Run

Jan 24 / 18.5 / 2:04:37 / 6:51 / LSD

I did my long distance run yesterday with fellow Gone Running Club runners. We planned to use the Paseo – Nuvali Road –Cangolf and back. Unfortunately, as I was about to unload the hydration at the guard house, the guard told me that it was prohibited to run along Nuvali road as mandated by the management (I guess for the safety of the runners). Runners are allowed only to run at the lakeside area, but bikers are still allowed. I will have to coordinate with Nuvali management to clarify this mandate. Anyway, we ended up going to the Paseo-Lasalle-Verdana Route but we were not allowed to enter the second gate going in to Verdana-Greenfield road. So we headed back and use alternative routes since there are many options anyway in the area. It was a good run, I only had brief walk breaks. I hope to improve next week as I felt so tired in the last 3km stretch.

As for biking, I felt a totally different handling on the road bike vs mountain bike. Obviously it was lighter and helped to add more speed. I did a 50km ride with an average speed of 24kph, way off the mark of the elite riders that was training at that time, they were riding at an average of 35-40kph. I needed more leg power to increase the speed, my heart rate was at 80% only and my legs can’t keep up. In time, I'll be able to catch up with the pack. Another week of training, let’s see what happens.

Running and Biking

It was a good workout last week, however, I have slipped a bit on my planned mileage for my running workout, but I compensated in my bike mileage instead. I logged in a total of 7 hours and 46 mins of workout the whole week which includes a 2 hour and 53 mins of weekend ride on my mountain bike in Tagaytay yesterday. Total running mileage was 42.5km and a cycling mileage of 48.5km.

It was a better run for me last week, I decided to push myself a bit and exerted more effort in my 10km run and I was able to finish in 1:04:57. I am less than 5 minutes off the sub-60 mark. Hopefully this week would be a better run for me.

Sunday was the planned long ride with fellow Mountain Bike riders and we decided to take the reverse palace route going to Tagaytay. It was a cool morning and we took off from Paseo de Sta Rosa at about 6:00 am. I was riding with Luigi (Ford), Leo (Avon), and Neil (Avon). I appreciated that we started on time as agreed, no more waiting and setting up of bike. We were just read to go and pedal all the way.

I haven’t had an uphill climb for a while now and found myself struggling and have been on granny mode (lowest gear) on the way up. Sure thing, running and biking are two different workouts. But good thing that my cardio has improved through running. Indeed, I need to do more uphill bike training in preparation to Laguna Loop part 2 (about 185km and I missed part 1). I believe we are scheduling this in February after the Condura Run.

After 15km of ride, we took a pit stop to replenish and hydrate, it was already foggy and rain started to pour, we waited for awhile hoping that the rain will stop as it was very cold already, aside from the rain, it was also windy. As other bikers started to arrive at the pit stop, we decided to proceed since we figured that the rain will not stop. The chillness in the air helped us to climb easily, the road was foggy and you can barely see other riders from a distance.

Another training week ahead to look forward to. Here are some photos from our ride.

At km 20, foggy, raining, and windy. Brrrr! I came from down there and decided to stop a bit to capture this moment.

Still at km 20 looking up ahead, about 500 meters to the Tagaytay National Road.

With Neil while waiting for Leo.

With Luigi, Leo arrived 2 minutes after.

Mileage Build Up

Last week was my 3rd straight week of training without getting any new injury, though I still am suffering from a hamstring tendonitis which was the last injury I had after my first Marathon in November last year. Good thing I didn’t felt much pain during my run and it’s slowly getting better. I was given medication by my doc last week, hopefully it gets better soon. Meanwhile, I have to do some leg strength training to stabilize my run further.

So far, I was able to log good run mileage. Two weeks ago I had a total of 57 km , and last week was at 52 km, plus a 25km ride. You can view my training log at dailymile . Here are some highlights of my run last week.

1. I mostly did easy runs to build up on my mileage. Taking it one day at a time, hopefully I get to improve my pace as I move along. Tried to do some speed work, but I’m still protecting my hamstring injury, so I declined and instead to a steady pace.

2. It was my 3rd straight training last week without any injury (last year my training was always cut to 2 weeks straight due to injury).

3. Running has become a habit already, there was a time that I have this urge to run in the middle of the day while at work. Crazy huh? Well, I ended up running in our village after work.

4. Last Saturday, I did a 5km run and then proceeded with a 25km ride using my mountain bike. Hopefully I get to train using a road bike soon.

5. I did my long run in UP Los Banos (my hometown), had lunch at my sister’s house to celebrate my niece’s bday. My parents were there also, and we all had a good chat. Then went to do my long run in the afternoon inside the UP campus. I finished 16km with a steady pace of 7:00 min/km.

Feels good to be consistent in my runs, I have learned that building up mileage and being consistent is key to better performance. I hope to maintain my target mileage and to have a better performance this week.

First LSD of the Year

The past two weeks has been a good running week for me as I was able to consistently build up mileage comfortably. I took a one week rest from running prior the Christmas holiday to give my knee some rest and to recover from a month long injury. The week before Christmas, I was able to log in 26 km and was able to maintain an average pace of 6:30 km/min in some of my runs. This week, I just saw myself eager to run and was able to build up a total of 51km. It was crazy because I should have been increasing my mileage by 10% every week in order to have a gradual build up and to avoid any injury, however I was able to build 29km on my weekday run already and there’s a scheduled long run form me on a Saturday where I planned to do a 15k run.

The day before the LSD run, I got a text from Junrox that He and Alfred was planning to do a long run and invited me to join them. I immediately said yes since we are all from Sta. Rosa, Laguna and I am running the same route anyway. But I knew that I will be tempted to run longer, which I did. We met up 6am in Paseo Sta Rosa, and had a 2km head start since I ran from my house to Paseo. Junrox arrived and we did a 1km warm up while waiting for Alfred. As soon as Alfred arrived, we decided what route we will use since there are a lot of options in the area. We decided to do this route: Paseo – Nuvali – Paseo – Westgrove - Sta Rosa Village (my stop), then they proceeded to the Lasalle Canlubang then back to paseo to complete their course. It was a good run, a lot to talk about, and they also discussed on how they plan to do their strategies in the Ultramarathon. The two have a good teamwork, and obviously they will be helping each other out in the race.

We had our pit stop at Junrox’s house which was km 16 for me. We replenished and got hydrated and took some pretzels and banana. At this point I exceeded my quota already and was done for the day, but I still have less than 2km from Junrox’s house to mine so I would end at 18km. As soon as we arrive the gate of our village, I decided to continue since I can still do some more so off we went. At km 19, I decided to stop and did not risk my knee to run an extra 1km uphill, I waited for them to go down. On the way down, I started running again and completed my first run of the year at 22km. This also concludes my run for the week giving me a total of 51km. Next week would be my 3rd week of continuous training, I hope from here on I can consistently do my training since I have been stucked with a two week training then stop on the 3rd week to heal an injury.

Some photos from our LSD courtesy of Junrox.

With Junrox at km 12.
With Alfred at km 15.

With Alfred and Junrox at km 22.