Week 12a – 15th April – 21st April

Yes that’s right, I am superstitious so this was week 12a! Another big mileage weekend so a rest on Monday, just a walk to stretch the legs. Then back at it on Tuesday. This week should be the last long run before I start to taper, reducing the distance and intensity of runs to keep fresh for the marathon.

Once again thanks to everyone for their comments, support and encouragement over the past week, its really appreciated.

Link to my JustGiving page for Motor Neurone Disease Association #runforafriend #runwithafriend #runwithfriends.

MNDA Fundraising page

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

Tuesday 16th April

So Tuesday is the new Monday, easy run day, at least it’s supposed to be! Most people in the group run on a Monday so there was only 5 of us tonight. Drew who was off to London at the weekend for the marathon, Derek and Emma and fresh from his Manchester marathon two days before, Richie. The amount of marathoners and ultra marathoners I ran with this week was unbelievable and so good to get their advice and knowledge shared.

Tonights route started at VT car park and took us round East Shore Village along to the Station and up to Parklands, then down to the Green Bridge and along Grants Crescent, King Edward Road down to Noses Point and then back along the seafront. A classic route and in the company of some speedy characters who managed to slow down a bit so I could keep up with them.

Thanks for letting me tag along.

Wednesday 17th April

Wednesday is usually a technical run but with all the mileage the past couple of weeks, I have just been happy to run and not too concerned with the type of run. I was a little late (nothing new there), so arrived and started running immediately. Not sure what group to join as we ran along the seafront, we went with the group heading up Tempest Road. There were just 7 of us on this one and it turned out to be a really good run. Everyone stuck together and chatted as we ran.

At the top of Tempest Road we turned towards Dawdon and ran along Princess Road and Queen Alexandra Road to the Green Drive. We ran round the cricket pitch and then onto the old road that used to go to the pit, down Edith Street. Dawdon exiles reading this will remember exactly where I mean. Memories of rolling tyres down this road and building camps in the trees by the side of it will come flooding back.

At the bottom of the road where the old pit pay office used to be, now the entrance to Noses Point, we headed back along the seafront back to the car park.

Julie and Kmac below are running the marathon in Leeds too and really looking forward to finishing it with them.

Saturday 20th April

Saturday long run is here and we decided not to join the Foxes or group this morning. Instead we were going to run from Davids house in Peterlee all the way to South Shields which should be 22 miles.

Four of us set off from Peterlee and we were going to meet some others along the way.

Sally started us off with some stretches to get the muscles warmed up then set set off towards the Town Centre and down Essington Way towards Thorpe Village and on to Easington.

Anyone around my age and from East Durham, like me, was probably born at the old maternity hospital at Thorpe. It was here we met up with three fifths of the Favest 5 from week 8, Lynne, Michelle and Jo. They had ran from Seaham to meet us and were going to run with us.

As we ran towards Hawthorn we also met up with Ashleigh who also decided to join us as well.

We ran through Seaham seafront and just after VT car park we met legend Jen who gave me a quick motivational talk but I forgot to get a picture ☹️, sorry JT.

We continued along the coast road to Ryhope and at Ryhope Dene we bumped into more legends Captain O’Marvel and Nigel (Iron Man) who were doing their Ultra training for amazingly a 60 mile run coming up. Outstanding individuals!

We carried on into Ryhope and shortly after the photo below, Kmac decided to stop and turn back to Seaham. She had a little niggle and didn’t want to aggravate it. Always sensible to do that and not push on as I have found out myself.

As we got to Grangetown we turned towards Hendon and ran through there. The Favest 5, well three of them, also decided to turn back here as they were already a few miles ahead of us anyway. By the time they got back to Seaham later they had done 21 miles today. Even better news they have also signed up to the Leeds Marathon, so it will be great to see them, hopefully they will have time to stick around and wait for me to finish. It was great to run with these 3 today, the amount of marathon experience between them is off the scale and as we chatted along the way, they were dropping advice bombs and even gave me crisps, really useful later on to replace the salt quickly. I will be adding crisps to my back pack on 12th May.

While we are here, I know that some people scroll right to the bottom of my blog to see who Fave of the Week is, well I am going to change it this week. I am going to announce here who is FOTW, so if you have scrolled to the bottom , you will have to scroll back up and read the whole thing to find out.

My FOTW this week goes to:

Jo, Lynne and Michelle.

So just the 4 of us left to head into Sunderland and hopefully on to South Shields. From Hendon we went through Mowbray Park and as I ran through I stopped at the statue of John Candlish. When I was growing up in Dawdon, just down the road from us there was a huge playing field that was once the site of the Bottleworks factory (The Bottly). Candlish was the founder of the factory and at one time was a huge employer in the area and The Bottleworks was the largest bottling business in Europe. He also became Mayor of Sunderland and a local MP. It is said that waste from the Bottleworks was poured into the sea and now the sea glass that washes up onto Seaham beach and people travel from far and wide to collect, is the result of that waste.

We ran along Fawcett Street and across the Wear bridge towards Roker. By this time the injured heel pain was getting worse. It’s always there, lurking in the background but sometimes it just gets worse. I made it to the Bungalow cafe and said to David that I was going to call it a day. At this point I was at 15.7 miles so happy that I had got there. Sarah was meeting us at South Shields to take us home and she was already on her way, so David asked her to pick me up at the Stack in Seaburn.

The other 3 continued on their way and I had a very slow jog/hobble into Seaburn. I made it to the Stack just as Sarah arrived with baby Evie and I was happy that I managed 16.7 miles for the day.

Sarah drove me to South Shields and we parked up. We were going to have fish and chips with the others outside of Colmans, but it was actually quite cold so we went inside the restaurant and got a table while we waited for the others.

It wasn’t long before David and Sally arrived after completing their 22 miles and shortly after Ashleigh who had completed 21 miles. Fantastic running from the 3 of them.

If you have been reading this blog you will know that food plays a big part in my Victory Dance at the end of a long run and as you can see below, today was no different.

Sunday 21st April

After the run on Saturday, there was also a pub crawl through Seaham planned on the afternoon in aid of Nic Naps upcoming birthday, nice long walk, good training – right? Lots of drink, not such a good idea!

I left my car at my Mams in Seaham and decided I would run from home to pick it up on Sunday, I figured by the afternoon I should be recovered enough. As you can see from the stats below, it turns out I wasn’t really recovered enough! It should have been a 10k run door to door (6.2 miles), but after 4 I had enough and decided to walk the rest. I guess it was another 4 miles in the tank but other than that not much of a training run really. Lesson learned? Probably not!

The great thing about today though was the massive inspiration injection from watching the London Marathon on TV. The Elite runners are just amazing to watch but I must admit my emotions took a major leap when the coverage switched to the masses, all the regular people running for their own reasons, battling their own demons, running fast, running slow, just crossing that line.

I remembered going to York in October 2022 to watch my friends cross the line and that was the original seed of me doing this. I was absolutely thrilled for them crossing the line, just as I was for complete randoms running the London today. What a feeling that must be to cross the line, all that training, all that effort, what a reward!

Special mention to Drew and Chris who completed London in an amazing time today and also to my niece Emma and her boyfriend Jonny who ran a marathon in Vienna today. Hats off to you all.

Nutrition

Well first and foremost, alcohol is not a good addition to your nutrition, you would think that would be obvious, I can almost hear the tut tut tut from a certain fave as I write this ✈️🤣!

My long run this week, did not feel as comfortable on the fuelling as it has done in the past few weeks. So I will be concentrating on the timings next week. Just to make sure I am taking enough carbs on board.

The crisps will also be added to the bag on the day, thanks to Jo for suppling them this week.

Progress to Plan

So I am comfortable that 20 miles ended up my longest run in training. It was important as I mentioned in a previous post to get that number starting with a 2, I did that and I was happy. My longest run according to the plan was only 19 miles so I had beaten that.

Key Learning

So much of the massive amount of advice from marathon experts in the past few weeks has focused around mental attitude. Indeed I have talked about it in many posts. As the big day gets closer, I know that this is going to be my biggest nemesis, it’s a battle I have to win. I am surrounding myself with messages like this over the next 3 weeks.

Fave of the week

Well, if you have scrolled straight to the bottom of the blog to find out who the FOTW is, you will have to go right back to the start and read the whole thing as the answer is somewhere above 😉.

Thanks to everyone I have ran with this week though. Great to run with Richie fresh from his Manchester marathon on Tuesday and also Drew, preparing for his own victory in London later in the week as well as Derek and Emma.

Wednesday night was a great run to be part of the Magnificent 7, we had some great chats and stuck together.

Saturday was a really good choice of route from David. It’s really difficult to plot a long run where you can start and finish at a convenient place for lifts etc. Running from Peterlee to South Shields just put a whole new perspective on distance. If I was travelling on public transport I would need to get at least 3 buses to get there for example, really makes you think about the distance you are covering on your legs.

Special mention to David and Sally for doing the full 22 on Saturday and also to Kmac for slowing her pace down to stick with me on Wednesday and Saturday.

29 miles covered this week as I now start the taper process to reduce the miles and the intensity over the final 3 weeks.

See you next week.