Activity Details in Google Sheets

Activity Schedule in Google Docs

Summary of this week’s activities

First, let’s review my activities during this week. I had three run activities in this week. On Monday (25/08) I had a 7K run with the following averages: (6.99 K, 4:52 min/km, 169 bpm, 30m elevation gain). On Wednesday (27/08) I had a Running Room hills training 10×400 run with the following averages: (9.15 K, 5:54 min/km, 163 bpm, 317m elevation gain). On Saturday (30/08), I had a 11.35K run with the following averages: (11.35 K, 4:58 min/km, 169 bpm, 24m elevation gain).

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
7K run	26	Hills Training 10×400	28	29	11K run	31	27.49 km Run

VO2Max and weekly mileage

My VO2Max this week in my (Monday, Wednesday, Saturday) activities were (51, 50, 50) ml/kg/min respectively. Also my weekly mileage this week was 27.49 km run.

About individual runs

On Monday (25/08): Again I had a pain in the lower right hand side of my stomach, this time even at the 7th km which was the best excuse to stop running 😀 hahaha (one possible reason maybe the water that I drank in the 5th km)
The positive point of the run: Now I can see if I focus on my run (not flirting with the other runners:D) , I can easily adjust my cadence on 180 +/- 1 spm and also my pace on 4:55 +- 0:05 min/km . In the actual day for marathon I plan to run the whole thing with a 5:00 min/km pace or so in the average and it’s important in terms of saving power to have an steady run (at least for my running style) . One of my problems in long distance runs is having an unsteady run, i.e. I was running faster the first 10 km (maybe up to 4:40 min/km) and slower in the second half (maybe down to 5:30 or even 6:00 min/km) . I am trying to correct it in order to have a more steady run !

On Wednesday (27/08): Good to see Chris , Justin, Danielle and the rest of the guys after awhile. I talked with Chris about the pain in the lower right side of my stomach, he and Justin gave me their idea about it and advised me to talk to my gp or a sport specialist if it continues . Again he suggested me not to train alone and do it with the group as the chance of getting injured would be higher when you train lonely . The problem that I have with Sunday morning long distance runs of the group is their techniques is 10min run 1 min rest which is different with my running style which is continuously running. Due to my limited for training for Victoria marathon , sometimes it really doesn’t work for me to join them for it , but there is absolutely no excuse for not joining them for Wednesday evening runs which is basically either hills or speed or a typical 10k run and I promise to join them all the time. Later I talked to my doctor about the pain to make sure it’s not my appendicitis and after our discussion apparently 95% it’s not . The main point is it was in the right lumbar region not the right iliac region , also it should start from the middle of my stomach and tend to the right side by means of time and also be sensitive by touching (if it was appendicitis) which wasn’t. Later I the pain gradually vanished and occasionally I had it when I drank water in the first 10km of the run (like sep. 6th which I experienced it a little bit)

On Saturday (30/08): At some parts of the run I was trying to adjust my cadence but I had difficulties in it so it seems to me i have to review the general idea of cadence one more time. Technically , the most effective way to decrease the pressure on our feet in a (long distance) run is to adjust the cadence. By experience, it seems it’s more efficient to keep your cadence around 180 spm during the run, but there is no absolute study which shows it should be exactly 180 spm. I can see when I am running with an appropriate pace like 5:00 min/km or faster , the 180 spm really works for me. But for the slower runs , usually the cadence would drop down to something like 174-176 spm or sometimes even lower. At those speeds when I am trying to (artificially) increase my cadence in order to decrease the overall pressure on my feet , it works reverse on my feet and the sudden attempt to increase the cadence put more pressure on my feet. I recall, first the ideal cadence is about 180 spm not exactly 180 , second the ideal cadence is appropriate for the ideal run not for one with pace higher than 5:20-5:30 min/km. So maybe for those speeds, 174-176 spm work better for your run. And finally I should mention that I adjust my cadence with what my watch tells me , and you know sometimes the GPS of the watch doesn’t work properly and you are trying to adjust your cadence with the wrong data . So the final conclusion is in general try keep your cadence around 180 spm , but if you see your attempt to increase the cadence works reverse for you (particularly when you are slow and tired) , keep working with the low cadence which is usually still over 170 spm. The other point is I have to improve my motivation and concentration during the runs; Sometimes runs are boring. I have to make it more fun for myself by group running or other ways and also remember training time is not always fun time 😀