London Marathon Training – Week 3

Week 3 already and another high mileage week planned.

Monday started off with a 3.3 mile walk with my wife, immediately followed (after a quick change into my shorts) by an 8 mile run. This included 4 miles at potential marathon pace (MP). The MP miles averaged 6.15 pace, which as you can imagine, I was very pleased with, especially as my heart rate (HR) was lower than in previous marathons.

Tuesday was my first double day of the week. It started with an early 10 miler, all at an easy effort and not focussing on pace at all. I ran 4 miles to the club in the evening to the club before joining them for another 8.2 miles, including some faster miles helping keep someone company who was aiming to run at his marathon pace. Those faster miles, my 17th-20th miles of the day, averaged 6.25 pace. Once again I was very pleased with those after that amount of mileage in my legs.

On Wednesday I put my sensible head on and just ran at a very easy effort level and once again didn’t focus on the pace.

Thursday was an interesting running day and I think I almost underestimated it. I had to drop my car into the garage for a service. I dropped the car at 8am and ran at an easy effort home. However, town to Wigston is net uphill so although I was running at an easy effort, the 4.25 miles home felt harder on my legs than I thought. However, without a car I had the choice of catching a bus or running back to collect it. As I am not one to take the easy option I decided to run back. As it was a net downhill the 4.37 miles back felt far easier than earlier. Two runs down by 12pm.

The next run was the Next Running Group and week 9 of their Couch to 5K plan. However, as they have been doing so well we decided to go on a ‘magical mystery tour of Enderby’! If anyone knows Enderby they will know that there isn’t much magical about it and the only mystery element was that I allowed each person to pick part of the route. This meant that (with a bit of creativity towards the end) we managed to run bang-on 5k. High-5s all round!

My final run of the day was the Wigston Phoenix hills session. Running late due to the extra few minutes with Next, I managed to see runners from the club just setting out as I neared the meeting point. Luckily, as they were warming up and I already had with Next, I managed to catch them just before they got to the first hill. 16 reps of various hills later and I was blowing hard! The hill session was 6.67 miles bringing Thursdays total to 18.76 miles.

Friday should have been a recovery day and would have been, had the client I was running with not been faster than she let on! So after 5 miles of various hill reps around Wigston and finishing with some sprints on the flat, my legs were feeling it again. However, I can’t complain as she pushed hard and was faster than she thought as well and, after all, it is my job to get people working.

Saturday is long run day and for the second week running the plan was 20 miles. Once again I thought about letting the time drift by with another ‘Tour de Parks’. I thought I’d see how many green spaces and parks I could run through without looking at a map or plan a route beforehand. I think I managed 15 different green areas/parks within the 20 miles. The run itself started as a bit of a struggle. My legs felt tired and although it was cold, I felt warm ‘just not right’. However, after about 5 miles I started to get into a happier rhythm and settled into a consistent easy effort and pace. By the end of the run, which took a fraction over 2hrs 30mins, I was feeling far better than at the beginning and could have gone on for longer. I had my sensible head on though and really wanted breakfast!

Sunday was a very gentle 4 mile recovery run around Wigston. For the second week in a row my left calf felt a little tight and tired, but nothing I would deem as anything more. However, the biggest aim of my training is consistency so I will not be risking injury.

 

Week 3 Totals: 82.3 miles covered over 11 runs, 3.3 miles covered over one walk, plus some basic core exercises on my BOSU ball.

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