Garmin Coach Half Marathon – Week 11

Week 11 of my half marathon training plan with Garmin Coach is all about progress. The pain in my foot keeps getting better and so is my mood! I guess I should be happy I was still allowed and able to run through my injury recovery, but running with restrictions (and pain) while trying to train for a specific goal can become a little frustrating. The most important thing right now is to make sure I don’t overdo it while still making good progress towards that goal. 

Training 36 – Tired run

 I really like Amy’s ‘tired runs’. They are scheduled after each long run and have no pace goal, the most important instruction is ‘just run’. So I just ran, 5K in total at an average pace of 8:20 min/km. I turned off all my thoughts, zoned out and ran 2,5K in one direction, turned around and ran 2,5K back home. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be more than that. 

Training 37 – Speed repeats

The first speed workout in a long time! I’m feeling more and more confident that my foot is healing well and while I don’t want to jeopardize my recovery I really needed to do some speed work. The plan: 10 minute warm-up, 7 times 1 minute fast (6:57 – 7:16 min/km), followed by 1  minute recovery, then 6 times 1:30 fast followed by 1:30 recovery and a 10 minute cooling down. I was flying so fast I didn’t come anywhere near the goal pace. No clue where this speed came from or why my foot didn’t even try to protest against all this. I did need to walk most of the recovery’s and I’m pretty sure I hereby missed the point of the workout. But, it was fun. I kept telling myself during those intervals to go slower, which is partially why my pace was a bit inconsistent. It clearly didn’t work though. I peaked ahead at next week’s schedule and I’m getting a do-over at this pace. Let’s see if I can do better. 

1 minute intervals:
1 – 5:22 min/km
2 – 5:37 min/km
3 – 5:34 min/km
4 – 5:40 min/km
5 – 5:46 min/km
6 – 5:28 min/km
7 – 5:54 min/km

1:30 minute intervals:
1 – 6:27 min/km
2 – 6:37 min/km
3 – 6:27 min/km
4 – 6:09 min/km
5 – 6:22 min/km
6 – 6:27 min/km

Training 38 – Easy run

This is the first week I’m doing the speed workouts offered by Garmin Coach again. I feel my foot still enjoys the extra recovery time from only running three times a week, so this week the easy run will be skipped. No Friday fun run for me. 

Training 39 – Run

Coach Amy’s long run. Today the plan is a 2 minute warm-up, a 9,65K easy run and a 2 minute cooling down. I left a lot later then usual for this run, it was 11:21 when I started my run while I usually start at around 9:00. I’ve not been sleeping very well and I was just so tired. I stayed in bed late, had a big breakfast and then slowly went on my way. Out of habit I said good morning to many people I saw during my run, which might be a little weird at almost 13:00. Oh well, it’s Sunday. The most annoying part about starting late were the other people though. It was very busy on the small paths of my and I spend a lot of time passing walkers, getting out of the way for cyclists and trying to have eyes in my back. 

I skipped the cooling down, because I had already passed my house and just wanted to walk home. I ran 9,91K at an average pace of 8:36 min/km. That’s on the faster part of my current easy pace and I was actually for the most part of the running going a bit faster as intended. Most of the run I was faster as my intended pace and for about 10 minutes I was really at the border. My watch will give three warnings that I’m going too fast and then it’ll accept I’m not listening. When I pause the run or reach the intended pace again, it’ll give three warnings again. As my pace kept going around the border of within range and too fast, my watch just kept buzzing constantly. Eventually I just slowed down to make the buzzing stop. 

Summary
Is it green, is it purple, is it both? The Garmin Connect app still shows the confidence level in green, but it seems Coach Amy is confident in my ability to finish a half marathon within 2:40. I’m secretly hoping to do it a little faster, but let’s not talk about that just yet. 
 

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