Mon: 50min easy + 5 x 15 sec strides Complete. 10.52km. https://www.strava.com/activities/9469722595
Tue: 20 min warm up, 3 x 2k @ 7:20 (60) + 4 x 1k @ 3:30 (60), 20 min cooldown Complete. 7:18, 7:17 and 7:15. 3:28, 3:28, 3:27 and 3:26. 16.78km. https://www.strava.com/activities/9475997970
Wed: 60min easy + 5 x 15 sec strides. Complete. 12.40km. https://www.strava.com/activities/9482338000
Thur: 80 min easy Complete. 16.71km. https://www.strava.com/activities/9489127166
Fri: 20 min warm up, 2 x 25 min @ 3:55 km pace (2 min easy jog), 20 min cooldown Complete. 18.88km.https://www.strava.com/activities/9495234671
Sat: 2 hours – 2 hours 10min. Complete. 26.59km https://www.strava.com/activities/9499372243
SUN: off
Weekly total: 101.9km.
The long run – the one run that all runners and coaches alike will tell you that you simply cannot miss in the build up to a marathon. I’m guilty of saying this myself. I said this to myself last Saturday as I trudged along the Clontarf coast to Sutton and right the way up to the hill to Howth Summit – gale force wind, torrential rain and the constant nagging, internal line of questioning asking myself ”What am I doing here?”, “What’s the point of this stupid running business?” and “How can I convince myself that it’s ok to stop?”. There were no answers forthcoming to any of these questions, I finished the last few kilometres running 4:50’s like the champ that I am and home I went. The last couple weeks I have found myself doing my long runs on Saturday, immediately after a session on a Friday evening, which has made me feel a bit more run down than I usually am in a marathon block. This should be the last week of that and hopefully back to the usual Sunday timetable. I find I get the best out of myself on a long run if I have the day off before it.
Overall this week, training was pretty simple and effective. The Tuesday and Thursday sessions recently have all been at threshold and (hopefully) goal marathon pace so they aren’t too taxing and definitely much less taxing than what I have previously done. The goal is to get extremely comfortable at those paces, ramp up the time spent on feet and, with the long runs on a Sunday, build a solid aerobic base that is capable of performing well in Berlin. All runs were solo this week with the noticeable exceptions of Thursday (watching Efrem Gidey burst laps around the acres) and Saturday with Barry. After a typically controversial negotiating period, we eventually settled on meeting at the Pope’s Cross at 11am. Just before setting off, I ran into my coach, Seán – much to the consternation of Barry who felt put out that I delayed him by 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Thankfully he forgave me when I took him on a tour of the Croppy Acre before starting the ascent from Stoneybatter to Castleknock. My long runs have mostly been hilly, similarly to my Dublin buildup, and I’ve added in the Howth Summit a couple of times. Berlin is a flat marathon but hills are nothing if not beneficial. Seán had advised that I take in hills on as much of my runs as I can, including the easy ones, as this will help build the strength needed for the latter stages of the marathon.
It’s hard to know exactly where the fitness is at the moment. I have been slightly worried that I’m not progressing the way I need to be, however, I have just ran 10k PB in Dunshaughlin (soft enough as it was) but then followed that up with a bad day in Kilcock 5K to really fuck with the head. Seán has adjusted the training accordingly and I have full faith in the process but the doubts always creep in when there are no races on the immediate schedule to test the fitness in the race environment.
Buckets of Rain 