Week 14 – 22nd April – 28th April

We are into the final 3 weeks, where has that time gone? So we are now into taper territory where the run distance and intensity is reducing so that I am fresh come marathon day.

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 23rd April

Continuing Tuesday is the new Monday, I joined the speedies again for another heart pounding run, although they call it an easy run!

Usual route along the seafront and up round Dels Tours (round Dawdon) and back down past the Station to East Shore Village and back to the seafront.

Wednesday 24th April

Wednesday is group run day and usually I would be doing something more technical, speed or hill related, but I just wanted to get a steady run in tonight without thinking too much about what I had to do. So a nice steady 4 and a bit mile run again on a familiar route.

Saturday 27th April

We haven’t had a Foxes run for a little while so it was nice to do one this morning, only a short stretch of the legs as we also had the group run later and hopefully a final long run tomorrow. Now that we have the marvellous parking charges in Seaham on a Saturday morning we are running away from the seafront lately. So we started at the Town Hall and ran through Seaham Park to Northlea, turned left towards Byrons Walk and then down Byrons Walk towards Seaham Hall.

For the Seaham ex-pats and also anyone reading who is interested in the history of Seaham Hall, it is probably most famous as being the place where Lord Byron (who was once described as being “mad, bad and dangerous to know”) married Lady Anne Milbanke, the daughter of the original owner of Seaham Hall. Their only daughter was called Ava Lovelace who was one of the founders of computing.

The Hall is also famous as somewhere my mam worked when it was a hospital :-). In more recent years it is now a very nice hotel.

Anyway, back to the run, we ran round the back of Seaham Hall and up towards Seaham Harbour Cricket Club and then along to the Station. Down Harbour Walk and then back up Tempest Road turning right at the top towards the Police Station. From here we ran all the way up Station Road back to the Town Hall.

Back at the Town Hall, we were now ready to start the Group run. This was going to be an up hill start and then a nice downhill into Ryhope. From the Town Hall we ran up to the Lodge garage and then turned left up to Seaton, passing the Roadside (Seaton Lane Inn) to the old Railway line at the top of Seaton. From here we ran down the old line to Ryhope, then back up Stockton Road through New Seaham and back to the Town Hall. A little over 7 miles this morning, so very happy with that.

When we got back to the Town Hall we had a little birthday presentation to give to Birthday Boy Neil, who was celebrating his 50th. Happy Birthday Mr Jet.

Sunday 28th April

Sunday was due to be the final long run day. I was aiming for my final Half Marathon in training. We planned on meeting Sally after Sunday Circuits at 9.30 to run to Sunderland and back. When we got to the car park, it was raining and then some. Looking at the forecast, it wasn’t going to improve any time soon.

We all piled into Davids Landrover to decide what we were going to do. Not only was it raining really heavy but it was also windy. We really didn’t have to do this run today. If we did it was going to be horrible. We all decided, after a lot of laughing as you can see below, that this was one we could do another day. There was no benefit in doing it today. So instead we did what we do best, we went for something to eat!

Nutrition

Other than the breakfast above, not much to report this week.

Progress to Plan

So the long run this week was meant to be 11 miles in the plan. I was hoping to do my final Half Marathon but I had to settle for just over 7 miles on Saturday. I was comfortable with this as we still had early next week to look at doing 11 miles.

Key Learning

One thing I haven’t mentioned this week is my foot injury. Sadly it is still there, it’s always there but it is better when I run less. However I need to run to get the miles in my legs. It’s a double edged sword and it looks like something I will have to manage right up until 12th May. I just have to keep nursing it along doing stretches, resting when I can and if needs must taking pain killers when necessary.

Fave of the week

Tough one to choose this week. As always support and encouragement has been superb and I really appreciate it.

This weeks FOTW is Dawn. A very calming influence when you run with her. Always one of the first Foxes on the teamsheet and doing her own training for the Sunderland Half Marathon on the same day we are in Leeds. Thanks for all the support and chats Dawn.

So this was a taper week as I said at the start, managed just under 20 miles this week, which is more than I was doing way back at the start of this plan.

See you next week, just 2 more weeks to go.