4 Days In - So Far So Good

I effectively started my 12 week program for Geelong two days early with the 103km ride on Saturday and 17km run on Sunday. This was followed by an easy 4km recovery run on Monday, 3.2km squad swim yesterday morning and a 9km run session at the Athletics Track last night.

Last night's run session had intervals of 1km, 500m & 150m done 3 times. My speed and heart rate for the 3 sets was:
  3m44s pace  159/171 bpm
  3m29s pace  169/177 bpm
  3m33s pace  170/179 bpm
I started off relatively easy and then built speed through the session. However despite feeling pretty comfortable at a good pace, my heart rate tells another story. Hitting max heart rates of 177 and 179 is going to see me go into oxygen debt well before the end the of a 5km race (planned for 5th Dec). So I am going to have to aim at a race pace somewhere between 3m40s and 3m45s per kilometre which would give me a 5km time of between 18:20 and 18:45 - which is coincidently my initial target time (I just got over ambitious last night).

Planning to run 52km in 5 days (Sat-Thu), including a speed session, had me concerned - was I getting over ambitious again? However I've upped my stretching, icing, foam roller and rehab exercises and my legs have managed the training load remarkably well so far. They feel fairly tight and a little sore, but that is pretty normal and I feel confident I'll be OK for tomorrow night's 18km run (famous last words).

However for some reason I'm feeling a little tight through the neck and shoulders, an area that has been remarkably pain free for the last 2 months. I've also been experiencing minor spasms in the back and it feels like the slightest thing could re-ignite my lower back injury. So as a precaution I've decided to miss tonight's swim and may also skip the easy 4km recovery run planned for today.