Road to Munich 2013: 74 days to go


I was so excited when my coach told me that she has finalised my training plan. I will be having my first circuit training session with her this Thursday. She warned me that I will be hard. *gulp.

She developed my training regime based on heart rate. Well I was struggling to train on HR before as I always ended up running faster than the designated HR. I cant for example run in Zone 1 where the bulk of the runs were made up. I don't run the slow sessions slow enough during the LSD or recovery days to develop aerobic capacity and fat burning ability. You want to burn as much fat in your body as you can before moving into the lactate zone if you want to be an efficient endurance runner. Well I am not currently burning fuel aerobically as my weight fluctuates faster than that of the stock market indices. 


What is HR zone? Well think of it as a pyramid, and Zone 1 where you run the slowest being the base. You run faster further up the pyramid but the time spent will decrease respectively. If you run the upper tier more you will ended up with an upside down pyramid waiting to crumble. Effective HR training will eliminate the junk miles. It will require a conscientious effort though. My current zones are:



Zone 1  - 152
Zone 2 - 163
Zone 3 - 175
Zone 4 - 188
Zone 5 - 199
Zone 6 - 204


I like what my coach said about training with HR. 

"I look at it that you're like a racing car. Your performance is good, but I'm the equivalent of a mechanic, tuning up the engine and adding aerodynamics... hence the HR training to start with"  

It is going to be tough, particularly in Doha summer humidity as this pushes up HR by about 10 bpm. I may end up walking a lot in the first few weeks. Hopefully I would be able to increase my speed within each HR zone gradually. Just imagine top marathon runners running 3:30 min/km at Zone 3. I will be hitting Zone 6 for that kind of speed and burned all my glycogen storage after 1 km for sure. But those top marathon runners were not born as one, they trained to be, and so am I.

Sure Can One Lah
Syafei


Comments

Green Running Lantern said…
Assalamualaikum, just found your blog. It's impressive. I myself am 34 with two kids started running last April (my 1st km guna Couch to 5K program). My first run in Dec 2012 was 10km at 1:13. Here's the thing... by June, you did 54mins for 10km,... and against my Mizuno Wave the other day, I did 1:05.

Could you anyway share with us your training routine during that six months of early 2012? I looked through your posts, tak jumpa. ie. speedwork what days, how many runs per week, what's the mileage u targetted, etc. If you don't mind la. Thanks.
30 July 2013 at 18:13
Mohd Syafei Ahmad said…
W'salam

Well you did well for yourself too. Obviously a lot better than when I started running. I usually run 4 to 5 times a week
Interval, Tempo, LSD and a couple of short recovery runs. It is better if you have a target race, that you can train as your goal. There are plenty of training programmes on line. I used nike, when i started running. Then i used an online schedule by coach marius bakken for my 1st marathon and 2nd marathon. It was really good plan. you can google about him

Best wishes

Syafei
31 July 2013 at 07:50
Green Running Lantern said…
Thanks for the tip, and the replies to my post. I portray animosity online, so there is no self photos in my blog. Just my own thoughts and reports. So sorry if I don't reply you directly there. But yeah, I'm targeting Boston qualifying time by 2017, let's see if I can achieve that too. All the best.
31 July 2013 at 10:21
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