Week 7 – 4th Mar – 10th Mar

What a difference a week makes. Last week I finished on a bit of a downer mentally, the 16 miles took more out of me than I was expecting and I was considering throwing in the towel. Let’s see how this weeks training went and if my mind got back in the game or if the towel hit the floor!

If you would like to catch up on previous weeks, you can find them here:

The usual reminder below, please don’t take this as the perfect plan. It’s just mine, it works for me at the moment but hopefully you take away some ideas that you can include or indeed exclude from your own plan.

Reminder – this is not intended as any kind of recommendation, it is purely my own thoughts and comments on my weeks training. You should seek professional advice for correct marathon training tailored to you. However I hope it gives you some kind of inspiration to try something different yourself.

Training Runs

Monday 4th March

Monday is the night for a nice easy run after the weekends exertion. My legs were feeling OK after the long run yesterday surprisingly. So I did a nice easy 4.4 miles on a route we have done many times. ran with a great bunch of people, see the photos below.

Wednesday 6th March

I do like the Wednesday runs as it gives me a chance to do something I never focused on that much before I started this training – technical runs. Sometimes you get into the habit of just running and each run ends up being the same, you may run a bit longer or a bit shorter but do these runs test you enough? Well, I have found out with this training that doing the technical stuff and mixing up the runs does improve your overall running. I have done various types, Intervals, sprints, hill sprints, tempo etc.

This week was something called Half mile repeats which was essentially multiple tempo paced repeats. I started with a mile warm up which took me up hill a little to the train station. Then started the half mile, tempo paced run followed by a 90 second rest (walking/jogging). Then repeated this another 5 times with a final half mile cool down.

As I was doing the 90 seconds rest, I ended up doing much of this on my own but that was fine, its often difficult to talk when doing the faster runs anyway!

I also visited the Physio this week, just to get a sports massage to loosen up the legs a little for the weekend. I visit Kevin Jeffress from Stride Sports Clinic and he does a great job. I have been going to see Kev for maybe 3 years now, most of our group use him and swear by him. I left feeling much more relaxed and ready for the long weekend runs.

Saturday 9th March

Usually on a Saturday I do a Foxes run followed by the Group run, maybe doing 7 or 8 miles in total. I decided this week to just do one run to keep myself fresh for the long run on Sunday. As it was International Women’s Day on Friday, for one week only the Foxes became the Vixens run and was planned and run by the Vixens instead.

KMac planned the route and a great route it was, taking in THE Green bridge. We were joined by some first time Vixens Jacklynne and Julie Julie Julie W as well as Christine who is doing some great miles lately. I think Julie Y has joined us before and she also joined us today. As you can see we had our favourite hound running with the Vixens as well in Wilson.

Always great chilled chats on these runs and I enjoyed running with everyone.

Sunday 10th March

Long run day and 17 miles was the plan. The weather forecast was rain all morning and a stiff easterly breeze. For those reading this from out of the area, we run on the North East coast so that easterly breeze was going to be tough!

We left a car on the seafront, where we would finish and then I left my car at Dalton Park where we started. It was indeed a very wet start as we headed off to Murton and then looped round the back of Dalton Park to get some miles before heading to the seafront. As we ran down towards the seafront, that easterly wind and rain was right in our faces. The only benefit was we were going down hill.

As we got to the seafront we had done 5 miles already and it was all flat or downhill. You can get a good idea of the wind from the video below, turn your sound up.

We ran along the seafront to Seaham Hall and met up with Laura at the North Beach cafe. We were now up to a little over 7.5 miles. Laura was tapering, ready for her Ultra run next week so didn’t need the full 17 miles.

From here we ran along towards Ryhope and then towards Grangetown passing a McDonalds along the way so we took a brief toilet stop and of course Coffee Kristine had to get a coffee. Also a good photo opportunity for our Coffee distance challenge team I mentioned last week.

We eventually got to the edge of Mowbray Park where we turned around to head back to Seaham. It was great that the whole run the 4 girls ran with me as a kind of tag team. It was so good to run with them and chat along the way to keep me going. It makes a huge difference.

We were approaching North Beach at about 15 miles and bumped into Richie Eagle coming the other way, no time to stop but good to see him. We got back to North Beach where Laura left us and we had just over 1 mile to do to get to the 17 mile marker. Just one final hill to tackle up to Vane tempest car park which I am pleased I managed, then along the coast towards Bells Chip shop where we would finish.

I was feeling much better than last week. I remember the last 2 miles last week being particularly hard, this week it was much more enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong, it was still very painful, everything hurt but I was in a better place in my head.

We got to the finish line at the top of the marina, right next to the Miners wheel.

Nutrition

I was very happy with my fuelling for the long run with a mixture of Hi5 sachets, dried apricots and squashies as well as water. I seem to have found my perfect run fuel and also the time to take it on board.

Progress to Plan

Still ahead of plan, the long run this week was supposed to be 13 miles so 4 miles ahead of that. I feel like I am doing the technical runs as well as I can and respecting the Easy run.

Key Learning

After last week, I looked hard at some of the things I did and worked out ways to do them better. I don’t think there was one key thing I did that stood out ahead of the rest but I am certain the stuff in this list helped:

• Sticking to 4 days rather than 5. I added an extra day in last week and I don’t think there was any benefit in doing that. Rest is as important (if not more so) than running.
• Visit the Physio. It’s important to schedule in some time to soothe this hard worked muscles. I am now going to do this every few weeks.
• Chatty runs. For me, I love the company, I hate running by myself. I can do it and have done it in races for example but its far better having company.

Fave of the week

How do I decide these, I have no clue as everyone is so supportive and complimentary over the blog. Let me do some thank yous before the big reveal!

• I ran with lots of people on Monday and had some good chats. Thanks to my old mate Sandra who I ran with a little bit. Sorry you got injured afterwards, hope you make a swift recovery.
• Ashley, Leanne, Helen and Lila always up for a chat and a smile. They always brighten your day.
• Anne B, always good to have a chat.
• Julie Julie Julie W and Jacklynne, funniest double act in the group.
• The sisters Kirsty and Julie B, funny chats, thanks.
• On Wednesday I didn’t run with many people as I was either going too fast to talk or having a rest. But good to start with Coffee Kristine and finish with Sally D who came back to finish the cool down run with me.
• Again lots of chats on Saturday with Julie Julie Julie and Jacklynne again.
• Great to run and chat with Jet for a little bit.
• Christine and Julie who may be joining us in Leeds.
• Finally Scott, good to catch up on family and football.

So to Fave of the week, it has to go to the 4 Sunday runners who ran in tag team mode with me, kept my spirits up and basically dragged me over the 17 mile mark in the worst possible weather.

Thanks to:

• Kmac
• Kristine
• Laura
• Sally

So 31 miles covered this week and feeling in a much better place than last Sunday night. Whilst everything still aches, I know its only temporary and I am ready for next week.

See you next week.