Post Hellrunner Training

So post Hellrunner, marathon training was back in action.

The weekend of Hellrunner my training plan called or 3 miles on the Saturday and 10 on the Sunday. As Hellrunner was somewhere between 11-13 miles and I had a few niggles in my knees and ankles afterwards - no doubt due to proper footwear - I gave myself the Sunday off. Technically I had covered the weekends miles in one day and also didn't want to risk those niggles turning into injuries.

Monday is a scheduled rest day anyway so full training resumed on Tuesday. I took things up a gear this week due to late starts at work and did a 7am spin class followed by 20-30 mins in the pool in the mornings and my scheduled run in the evening.

This worked really well for me. I found I had loads more energy during the day and felt a lot more focused. My boyfriend was slightly concerned that I might be overdoing but the running mileage is fairly low at the moment and I am training for an endurance event so hopefully this will pay off later during the long runs. Sadly I work to a 6 week schedule so next time I'm on lates I will be doing more mileage during the week so I doubt I will get this chance again in my training plan but it was fun whilst it lasted.

I did learn a good lesson this week and that was not fake tan the night before when you literally roll out of bed and to the gym with no shower. Took a while to work out why I was sweating brown - not attractive.

Tuesdays run was a one mile warm up followed by mile sprints. This was were I learnt my second lesson - fuel properly! Having launched into the first mile sprint managing a 7.36 mile there was nothing left in the tank for any more sprints. It was now about 7pm and I hadn't eaten since lunchtime. I ran a steady mile home and cut the run short - lesson learnt for next time.

Wednesday called for a steady 6 miles on the treadmill at 10min/mile pace. I thought it wouldn't be too bad as that's slower that my normal slow pace but I found it really hard work mentally to stay on the treadmill and essentially do nothing but run for an hour. Normally I will do intervals on the treadmill to break it up but running solidly for an hour was hard. I actually got off at 3 miles ready to quit but instead I stretched, did some ab work and then got back on. I found the second half much easier and was really proud of myself for carrying on. There will be points in the marathon that will be mentally hard and this is good practice.

Thursday was a nice steady 3 miles which felt great. But the real reward came on Saturday at Parkrun, when I got a new PB. I had avoided looking at my watch the whole way round as this was my first Parkrun since November and I was planning to take it steady. As I approached the last corner I glanced down and saw my watch was on 23mins. I knew my PB was 24 something but wasn't sure what so I dug my heels in and gave it my all to the finish. As I approached I looked down at my watch and it was fast approaching 25 mins so I thought no PB. But when I stopped my watch it turns out I had ran 3.15 miles in 25mins dead on which gave me a 5k PB 24.40 :-) (turns out my previous PB was 24.57 so a whole 17 seconds improvement). The Parkrun official time is always a little off unless you are on the starting line when the horn goes off but I still got a new Parkrun PB of 25.01.

I was probably still on a high from Parkrun during Sundays 10 miles. The training plan called for 10 steady miles in 95 mins and I did 10.1 in 94 so almost perfect :-) This week has gone equally as well I even managed speed intervals outside and with no fueling issues.

I'm finding training this time round so much easier and almost relaxing. Following a training plan definitely helps with that one. I love knowing in advance what I have to do on each day and working out how to fit it in - rather than before fit it in around everything else which sometimes meant cutting runs short to do something else.

Looking back on my Nike Plus app I can see that last January I ran a total of 37.6miles in training for the Paris Marathon. So far this January (it's the 15th today) I have ran 39.3 miles already (not including Hellrunner). I'm including speed work, intervals, steady and slow runs so I feel really good about how it's going.

Fingers crossed for more good training weeks ahead.

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