This series is a weekly log for Week 2 of my training block for the Vientiane International Marathon on the 14th of December. I’m following the same plan as my past build, Dr Will Connor’s 13-week, 5-days-a-week plan. See Week 1 entry here: VIM Training Diaries Week 1
Monday – Rest
Scheduled rest day on my 5-day-a-week plan
Tuesday – Easy 60 minutes
Staple Easy run, unboxed, a fresh pair of New Balance 880s, thinking maybe the old ones were contributing to the foot issues. Straight away, I think it helped. continuing with the focus of easy runs easy in this block. The Light Blue Colourway looks great
- Distance: 10.43 km
- Pace: 5:45/km
- HR: 139 avg (much lower than usual)
- Notes: Ran fasted, just easing through it.
Wednesday – Medium long run (90 minutes)
Back in the new 880s again, and things went well. The foot wasn’t an issue, though I could still feel it in the background. Pushed out just over 90 minutes:
- Distance: 16.34 km
- Pace: 5:40/km
- HR: 147 avg
- Notes: Quads started to make themselves known in this run, which is unusual for me — interesting little signal.
Thursday – Sick day
No running, no work. Probably food poisoning or something like it.
Friday – Tempo session (shifted from Thursday)
Catchup on the thursday plan, Bounce back well. Target range was between marathon and threshold pace, which pretty wide, I sat closer to the top end without going all-in. Wanted to keep it just under threshold and leave room to build in the coming weeks. and keep that HM pace in my legs from LBP half coming up in a months time.
- 5 × 6 minutes: 4:28 / 4:22 / 4:25 / 4:22 / 4:16
- Zones: First two reps in Zone 3, last three into Zone 4
- Notes: Definitely hotter than marathon pace, but I’m okay with that. Bit of sharpening work for Luang Prabang in a month’s time. Foot held up fine.
Saturday – Easy 30 minutes
Plan said 30–60, so I took the minimum. Needed to get it done quickly before a big day ahead. Good to tick the box:
- Distance: ~5.7 km
- Pace: 5:18/km
- HR: 147 avg
- Notes: Nothing fancy, just clipped along.
Sunday – Long run (25 km)
Better weather than last week, so I went downstream and found a dirt (read: mud) road along the peninsula. Wore my old shoes — didn’t want to wreck the new ones — but that meant dealing with the same pair that’s been giving me foot issues. Started at 5 a.m. in the dark, but rookie error: I hadn’t charged my headlamp, so it died within five minutes. Ended up running the first 30–40 minutes with my phone torch, stumbling through potholes and mud until the light came up.
The first few kilometres were on a trashed road with deep, slimy potholes, not great for the legs, jarred by missteps from misjudging the undulations in the low light conditions. The road narrowed to a car width and then even further to a motorbike track on the levee, beautiful running once I got there. The tradeoff is that the local dogs claim the small tracks as their territory so plenty of dogs to deal with. Once the trails improved and light came, I got into a decent rhythm and picked up the pace to a normal, easy running pace. Early on, when it was slow going, I was thinking I should cut it off at two and a half hours, but the prescription was for 25 km, and by the time I reached 1:15, I was only just short on the distance so I pushed through, and then continued picking up the pace on the back half. By 7 am in the sun, it was already brutally hot, pushing 27-28 degrees.
- Distance: 25.0 km
- Time: 2h33m
- Pace: 6:06/km
- HR: 146 avg
- Notes: Foot okay. HR control was excellent for the distance, heat, and conditions. Really happy with how steady I kept things throughout.
Week 2 Totals
- Runs: 5
- Distance: ~70.2 km
- Time: ~6h38m
Reflections
The foot is still there in the background, but manageable — switching into the 880s has clearly helped. Solid week, still room to build, having only done 30 minutes Saturday. Long run on the dirt was the highlight of the week, always good to get out of town and explore some trails.