Week ending 16 aug 2026
On track for 2:41 to 2:44. The limiter is specificity: goal-pace running finally appeared, but in 4-5 km pieces, never as sustained volume.
- runs
- 6
- distance
- 90.3 km
- time
- 6h 44m
- elevation
- 708 m
| day | session | km | time | pace | hr | load |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mon 10 aug | Afternoon Run | 5.2 | 26:36 | 5:05 | 139 | 28 e |
Rain and hail. Clean HR trace, max 160. | ||||||
| tue 11 aug | 5-5-4-3-2-1-30-30 + 15min MP | 15.3 | 1:03:44 | 4:10 | 167 | 97 e |
5.80 km of reps off 60s recoveries, then a closing 15-minute block of 3.98 km at 3:46/km for HR 179.9. First goal-pace-band block on record. Rep-level HR erratic and partly artefactual; the two 5-minute reps ran 3:42 and 3:41/km. | ||||||
| wed 12 aug | Herdsman + 4x400, 5x800 | 20.3 | 1:38:09 | 4:50 | 162 | 140 e |
11.6 km opening block at 4:57/km for HR 161.7 including a 1.74 km hill effort at 177 bpm, then 4x400 at 3:55/3:50/3:40/3:38 and 5x800 at 3:39/3:40/3:39/3:44/3:41 off 200 m jogs. 5.6 km of reps. Second consecutive quality day. | ||||||
| fri 14 aug | Bridges | 12.2 | 58:44 | 4:48 | 157 | 79 e |
Continuous, 4:48/km for HR 156.7. Includes the Mount Street climb at roughly 14% grade, 184 bpm. Expensive for the pace against the block's easy reference. | ||||||
| sun 16 aug | Long run, 4x5k @ MP | 36.4 | 2:33:18 | 4:12 | 160 | 214 e |
11 km approach, then 5 km reps at 3:50.0 / 3:55.2 / 3:53.4 / 3:56.6 for HR 170.4 / 170.3 / 168.1 / 168.8, broken by 1 km floats at 4:21-4:52. 20 km of marathon-pace work from km 11 to km 34, drift -1.6 bpm. Rep 1 inside the goal-pace band. Final rep carried 87 m of climb on a deliberately hard route. | ||||||
| sun 16 aug | Double | 0.7 | 3:43 | 5:10 | ||
Shakeout, 5:10/km. | ||||||
good
- Goal-pace running appeared for the first time in the block. Tuesday's closing 15-minute block ran 3:46/km for 3.98 km, and the long run's first 5 km rep ran exactly 3:50/km. Both sit inside the 3:43-3:50 goal-pace band, which nothing on record had entered before.
- The long run repeated the 20 km marathon-pace block from two weeks ago and beat it where it counts. Same average work pace (3:53.8/km) at effectively the same average HR (169.4 vs 169.8), but drift went from +9 bpm to -1.6 bpm, the work finished at km 34 instead of km 32, and the closing rep carried 87 m of climb instead of 54 m.
- All four marathon-pace reps ran at 168-170 bpm, i.e. 2-7 bpm below the floor of the calibrated 172-177 marathon band, sustained from km 11 to km 34 of a 36.4 km run.
- No symptom at either dormant site, and nothing cut short.
note
- Volume fell 19% to 90.3 km across 5 run-days while quality density roughly doubled. Work above 165 bpm was about 33.7 km, roughly 37% of the week, against 17% last week. Lowest-volume and highest-intensity-share week of the block.
- Easy-pace HR ran expensive. Wednesday's 11.6 km opening block cost 161.7 bpm at 4:57/km and Friday's 12.2 km cost 156.7 bpm at 4:48/km, against a block reference of 148.5 bpm at 4:42/km on 5 August. Both were hillier per km and shorter, and Wednesday's block contained a real hill effort at 177 bpm, so the comparison is contaminated. It is still the first easy-pace HR elevation of the block, and it points one way.
- Two consecutive quality days, Tuesday and Wednesday, after a week with none. Thursday and Saturday were full rest.
- Threshold work ran slightly slower than the block standard: Tuesday's two 5-minute reps at 3:42 and 3:41/km and Wednesday's five 800s at 3:40/km average, against 3:37/km for three prior weeks. Tuesday's reps preceded a 15-minute goal-pace block on the same run, so the two are not directly comparable.
watch
- The 2:40 criterion - 15 km or more inside 3:43-3:50 on fatigued legs, HR at or below 177, under 10 bpm of drift - remains not met, but the reason changed. Goal-pace had never appeared at all; now it has, twice, in 3.98 km and 5.00 km pieces. What is missing is duration, not pace. With 14 days to the race there is room for perhaps one or two more quality sessions, so a 15 km goal-pace block is unlikely to appear before race day. The projection therefore rests on the 20 km marathon-pace evidence, not on goal-pace evidence.
- Projected range holds at 2:41-2:44, with the fast end materially firmer. It previously rested on one line of evidence, the HR cost inside the 2 August marathon-pace block. It now rests on two: a repeat of that block with flat rather than rising drift, plus the first goal-pace-band data on record.
- Heart-rate strap artifacts recurred: a 182 max inside a 4:59/km warm-up lap, and a 4-minute rep at 3:43/km logging 161 bpm. Short-rep HR ran erratic and frequently inverse to pace this week. The 5-minute reps, the 15-minute block and the 5 km reps are the usable numbers; the short reps are not.