30 km at 4:13/km (avg)

Today is two weeks until Tokyo Womens International Marathon in which Satohi, the lady I coach, is entered. And it is two weeks and four days until my Ohtawara Marathon. I had originally scheduled a regular 30 km long run at increasing pace. But after some careful consideration, I decided that another long race-pace run would be best. The two important points leading to this decision were that a) We have both recovered quite well from the same kind of run two weeks ago, and b) We have (at least I know I have) gained a strong fitness stimulus from that run. So I figured that we have enough time to recover fully from today, and enough time for the training stimulus to come through and help out on race day.

Again, we chose the Imperial Palace with its 5-km loop (4.96 to be precise) for this run, which would give a good basis to compare with two weeks ago. In contrast to two weeks ago, we went for a minimal warm-up of only half a kilometer. Satohi was sorted out with the paces she had to run and also had the experience of the previous run under her belt, so didn't really need me to ride shotgun for a lap. So without much ado we started.

That dull achy sort of pain at the back of my left knee was present right from the outset, but not intefering too much. With target laps of 21:15 per lap (or a little better because of the short 50 m), I was perhaps moving a bit quicker than I should have.  I was fine through the first two laps, with heart rate on the flat staying under 155. Up the hill (and this is the challenging part of this course) it was staying under 160, but that would not last for many laps.  I was able to stay under 4:15/km pace for all but the sixth lap, though during that sixth lap my heart rate was getting pretty high and my left leg was sore in the rear thigh as well as the knee. Interestingly, though, I didn't get any of the quad pain that I have experienced in my previous two sub 3-hr marathons (it seems to start around 25 km). Also, I didn't take any water throughout, though the temperature was about 19 to 20 degrees. I took a gel before the end of lap 5, just for the practice, but don't think it made any difference to the sixth lap. Anyway, basically the data tell the story:

Lap time    Pace    Hrmax    Hravg    
   0:20:39   0:04:10     84%    78%
   0:20:50   0:04:12     85%    81%
   0:20:55   0:04:13     87%    82%
   0:20:55   0:04:13     87%    83%
   0:21:05   0:04:15     88%    84%
   0:21:15   0:04:17     89%    85%
Total time: 2:05:40, distance: 29.76 km; average pace 0:4:13 min/km

I would be lying if I said I was unhappy with this result, but I would have preferred slightly more even pace rather than the fast start and gradual slide. Who knows how much worse that would become over the ensuing 12 km...and without a lot of buffer.

Still I think with this run under the belt, and the order of difficulty presented by the Palace hill (and bloody crowds), the three-hour target is now looking clearly possible, and it will be all up to getting this dicky knee sorted out through the taper and then good old fashioned execution.

Satohi had a good run too, generally maintaining slightly better than her target race pace of 4:40/km for 25 km. And at least she doesn't have any injury problems!