21km Monday, Tuesday 30km Ride & Wednesday 10km Run
Monday was an off day for me and managed to do a 21km run. Woke up a bit late for this but even so, only had a lousy 4+ hours of sleep....maybe too much rest over the weekend! I should stop napping in the afternoon perhaps! After some tough decision-making, I went with the Puma H-Streets (a good decision). I just ignored my pace and garmin for the first 10km or so and went on a pace comfortable to me. At the halfway mark, average pace was about 5:53min/km. Went about 2km into the coastal straight...it was dawn by then so not creepy at all :) Pace dropped going into ECP and average became 5:58min/km at one point. With 5km to go, I upped my pace a bit and was determined to do better than my last 21km PB.
With 3km left to go, the rain started and it was pretty heavy. The shoes were rather slippery under such conditions and could not really do any sprint. Nevertheless managed decent under 6 min/km pace and finished with 5:53min/km average pace. For 21km, this is a minute+ better than my previous PB which was ran at 5:57min/km pace. The next step will be to get below 5:50min/km. The target of course will be to ultimately get to 5:42min/km which gives an under 2-hour 21km.
Tuesday, I just had to get back on the bike. After yesterday's 21km PB I figured I should try for a 30m ECP-Coastal-ECP PB of under 54mins and average speed of 33.5km/h. So I went about setting a Virtual Partner (VP) on my Garmin that does an average speed of 33.5km/h. The VP is relentless and will keep this pace regardless so it will be difficult for me. From the start the VP just shot off (it goes from 0-33.5km/h in 0 secs) so I had to give chase at speed higher than that. At some point along the service road I was in front of it but after a slight slope and headwind I was behind. Going into Coastal, I was 300+m behind the bugger. Managed to get this to 200m by the end of coastal but the u-turn gave it the edge and pretty soon it was 400m ahead of me! Back at service road, I upped my speed with conscious effort for that 1+km and managed to complete with the VP 200+m ahead.
I lost but with a decent average speed of 33.2km/h for the route, which was completed in less than 55 mins (54:15 to be exact). Average HR was 153bpm......my PB was achieved a year ago with an average HR of 163bpm (!!). I need to get the HR up and stop being lazy, I can beat this. Incidentally, this is the fastest I've had on this route NOT using HEDs. As I previously empirically determined, the HEDs were about 0.5-1km/h faster on the average on this course compared to my DA/Mavic OP wheels.
Sportracks had me at 207W average power for this ride. That's decent! Next : 32km 1hr challenge on the Ryo/Jack course. I'm missing my training buddy's inspiration on the bike.
Wednesday, did a quick 10km run. I was looking forward to meet Ryo for this at 5.45am but at 5am, it was getting pretty windy and started to rain so we called it off. I tried to go back to bed but couldn't get back to sleep. So at about 6.15am, it looked ok outside so I geared up for a quick 10km and back. It was drizzling a bit and cold at about 25 degrees C. Ran towards lagoon till 5km point and u-turned back. I did not look at my pace until 5km and did quite well....was surprised that with the effort level (which was not high, yet), I was averaging 5:23min/km but after that pace went down! Maybe I should have not taken a look at my watch!
Upped the tempo for the final 2km and managed to finish in one of my better times (4th to be exact). Effort was good and ave HR at 157bpm, definitely not all out. Should be possible to continue to 15km with ave of 5:30min/km...step by step.
With 3km left to go, the rain started and it was pretty heavy. The shoes were rather slippery under such conditions and could not really do any sprint. Nevertheless managed decent under 6 min/km pace and finished with 5:53min/km average pace. For 21km, this is a minute+ better than my previous PB which was ran at 5:57min/km pace. The next step will be to get below 5:50min/km. The target of course will be to ultimately get to 5:42min/km which gives an under 2-hour 21km.
Tuesday, I just had to get back on the bike. After yesterday's 21km PB I figured I should try for a 30m ECP-Coastal-ECP PB of under 54mins and average speed of 33.5km/h. So I went about setting a Virtual Partner (VP) on my Garmin that does an average speed of 33.5km/h. The VP is relentless and will keep this pace regardless so it will be difficult for me. From the start the VP just shot off (it goes from 0-33.5km/h in 0 secs) so I had to give chase at speed higher than that. At some point along the service road I was in front of it but after a slight slope and headwind I was behind. Going into Coastal, I was 300+m behind the bugger. Managed to get this to 200m by the end of coastal but the u-turn gave it the edge and pretty soon it was 400m ahead of me! Back at service road, I upped my speed with conscious effort for that 1+km and managed to complete with the VP 200+m ahead.
I lost but with a decent average speed of 33.2km/h for the route, which was completed in less than 55 mins (54:15 to be exact). Average HR was 153bpm......my PB was achieved a year ago with an average HR of 163bpm (!!). I need to get the HR up and stop being lazy, I can beat this. Incidentally, this is the fastest I've had on this route NOT using HEDs. As I previously empirically determined, the HEDs were about 0.5-1km/h faster on the average on this course compared to my DA/Mavic OP wheels.
Sportracks had me at 207W average power for this ride. That's decent! Next : 32km 1hr challenge on the Ryo/Jack course. I'm missing my training buddy's inspiration on the bike.
Wednesday, did a quick 10km run. I was looking forward to meet Ryo for this at 5.45am but at 5am, it was getting pretty windy and started to rain so we called it off. I tried to go back to bed but couldn't get back to sleep. So at about 6.15am, it looked ok outside so I geared up for a quick 10km and back. It was drizzling a bit and cold at about 25 degrees C. Ran towards lagoon till 5km point and u-turned back. I did not look at my pace until 5km and did quite well....was surprised that with the effort level (which was not high, yet), I was averaging 5:23min/km but after that pace went down! Maybe I should have not taken a look at my watch!
Upped the tempo for the final 2km and managed to finish in one of my better times (4th to be exact). Effort was good and ave HR at 157bpm, definitely not all out. Should be possible to continue to 15km with ave of 5:30min/km...step by step.
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