August Running Update

well things have been going better on this front
A HUGE motivation has been reading Galloway's Book on Running. Galloway is an Olympic Marathon runner, who turned his love of running into a career through developing running camps, sports shoe stores, writing books, personal training, and also features quite heavily in the Cool Running web site.
His methods for training are a bit different to the training schedule I have been following, so I have decided to modify it. One of the things he really focusses on in the book, is the importance of regular walk breaks, early and often, both in training and in races. He believes that marathon runners can actually improve their times using this, as if you walk for 1-2 minutes, ever 3- 9 minutes, the body recovers, and can continue on at the same pace almost indefinitely, whereas those who run continuously tend to slow down in the last legs of the race. So my interval training is a good thing!
What happened on Sunday is, that he suggests one endurance/distance run a week, adn this should be done by dropping your race speed by approx 1km/hr, and gradually building up the kms until you can run approx 20% more than the race length. So I did this and ran......
wait for it.......
I ran 10 kms - and only stopped there because the gym was closing! (It took about 75 mins) I was sure I could've run at least 12!
It was exhilarating! By running slower, I kept my heart rate at a comfortable level, and during the walk breaks my hr dropped to the bottom of the training zone, legs recovered, and I was ready to go again. Yeah!
He has also convinced me that I need to drop any cross training in between my running days that is pounding, or overly stressful. So reluctantly I need to drop Combat for the next 6 weeks until the race. The reason for this is that when you stress the muscles through endurance or speed, the muscle fibres break down, (that bruised swollen feeling) and then rebuild in a stronger format - but only if you give them rest! Light cardio is ok - helps the circulation and rebuilding - but no running or other similar stressful activity. His theory is akin to "less is more"
So I will try this out, as well as a speedwork routine on Fridays - will focus on short intervals of 11kms/hr - OUCH - don't know how I wil find running this fast.

Any way - its all very exciting, and only 5.5 weeks to the big race! Will be trying to run 12 kms this weekend - will let you know how it goes
Here's the weekly update of my running log:
http://www.sendmefile.com/00452591