Week 12

"I'm playing all the right notes—but not necessarily in the right order."

Total Mileage : 65

Runs: 7

 

Quite a momentous week this. Amongst my many petty achievments are:

1. Finally managing to complete a full week as specified in my training schedule. Almost. No, actually, i nailed it this week. The fact that one or two sessions were shifted about doesnt alter that. Messrs Pfitzinger & Douglas have written an excellent book on marathon training, but expecting you to race on a saturday is unrealistic given that almost every race in the country takes place on a sunday.
   
   The downside of swapping stuff around was a friday night long run. 18 miles. Rock, and indeed roll. After a long week 18 miles on a friday is a trial. It is even more of a trial if you decide to try out a new route round the hillier parts of Newton Mearns and the south of Glasgow. Ouch.
2. Doing the double.  Thursday was 4 miles before breakfast, 6 miles after work. The theory behind days like this is it lets you get the miles in without the same impact that a 10 miler would have. Pffft! Personally i think that final 6 miles hurt more than it would had i not run in the morning and recovered more fully before going out again.
3. Biggest week ever. 65 miles. Off the back of this i am feeling slightly more sluggish than i have been. Recovery feels like it is taking a little bit longer while the sessions are coming thick and fast. Only 3 weeks away from starting to taper though....
4. I have broken my annual mileage record. Only 22 miles off my target for the year too.
5. A new 10k PB! 45:09 (garmin time) at Pollok Park on sunday. This showed the perils of trusting GPS times, particularly in a heavily forested area. For most of the race i was averaging, according to my Garmin at least, 7:35 miles. My time looked to be heading for 47 minutes or so. Not a time i would have been disappointed in given the up and down nature of the course and the lack of rest in my legs. Turns out i was measuring short and i crossed the line in a massive 27 second PB.
   
   Frustratingly i am less pleased with this than i ought to be. My 10k PB has stood since September 2009. Possibly because it wasnt a particular target this time out and possibly because i failed to crack 45  minutes, i find myself less enthused. For all that it is a satisfying result and it stands me in good stead for the coming decisive weeks of training.
   
   While i dont think this changes my marathon pace target yet, it gives me something to aim for in the Jedburgh half in a couple of weeks time and how i do there will decide what i target with the Southside 6 the following week giving me a chance to do a MP dress rehearsal.

Week 11

Total Mileage : 63
Runs: 6

This week? I am not even going to pretend i was close to following my plan to the letter. I have mostly been doing what i feel like. Running wherever the spirit takes me. Jazz. Freestyle. Bip badda boop badda weeee wak wak wooo badda bong.

Or something.

Actually its been more a case of getting the runs in as and when and doing what felt reasonable at the time. Again, its been another week thats been almost entirely about the key sessions. In particular this was a tempo run on friday (which felt about as effortless as these runs can) and sunday's long run of 22 miles.

That long run was pretty much a breeze. This seems quite ridiculous to me. 22 miles and it wasnt a trial? How is that even possible particularly when i did a 5 miler earlier in the week and it felt pretty horrid? These are the mysteries of marathon training though. I have hit a bit of a sweet spot where i am in control of my effort. My form (while it has its issues) is clearly working for me (i know this when my feet feel better and look less scabby...). Most of all i am recovering well. Speed of recovery always seems like one of the best indicators of fitness to me. Just now i am recovering from everything other than the harder sessions in 24 hours with some comfort and even sunday's 22 mile run has not resulted in the expected stiffness (though i am experiencing slightly fatigued feeling glutes).

22 miles also marks something of a peak in the training schedule. Thats the longest run i will do. I have another 20 miler and at least one 18 mile run to come but getting the big one out of the way feels like i have broken the back of it a bit. There are still some tough runs to come but one of the most important ones is banked and that gives me a bit of confidence moving forward. Stats are currently suggesting i am ahead of where i was at a comparable point in previous marathon training. There is more improvement to come between now and the race too. This makes choosing a race pace tricky. My warmup races will help decide on that. More on this subject another time i expect...

Getting that benchmark out of the way has caused me to think more generally about benchmarks in my training. The 63 miles run this week ranks it as the joint biggest week i have done. My mind still quietly boggles at that number as i can quite clearly remember what a barrier a 25 mile week felt like!

September was the biggest mileage total i have posted in a single month by quite some distance. 248 as compared to my previous best of 214. For the last couple of years i have targetted 1500 miles for the year and failed. This year it looks like i will achieve that with ease, probably in about a week and a half's time.

Now these are not particularly significant milestones in and of themselves. Their real importance is in demonstrating that i am capable of absorbing the kind of training volumes that will hopefully give me a decent chance to have a good run in Florence. That being said there is a lot of positive motivation to be had from these little challenges and targets. If nothing else it helps to stop me fixating on the looming 26.2 mile monster heading rapidly towards me.

Week 10

Total Mileage : 62
Runs : 7

So a week where for once i have not been fretting about marathon targets and training plans and heart rates and all that fluff. This blog has primarily been about that sort of thing. It has mainly been about tracking how my training has been going and so it has been rather more technical than most folk will probably find interesting. I didnt ever much intend it to be about other stuff. My opinions on things are not considered all that important in my own home so i dont expect the wider public to have much interest in them. For this reason and for the very fact that i am a chap of fewer thoughts and even fewer of thos which are interesting, i have stuck to a narrow path with this journal.

This week is slightly different however (but only slightly, there is still running involved).

Sunday was the day that our son was due to be born.

Now were life as neat and tidy as the movies, this would have been an entirely momentous occassion. If we could package our lives up into bite sized and easily digestible sections, it would have been the end of one thing and the start of another. None of this is true however. This has been a complicated episode for both me and Lucy and to be perfectly honest, its always going to be there in some form. What that form is is usually hard to predict and even harder to grasp and while milestones help in gaining distance and perspective they never really alter the reality of what has happened.

That being said, it felt important to us to do something to mark this particular day. it felt equally important that this be something positive as we have never sought to dwell on the negative aspects of our experience. While we have been scuffed, bruised and scarred emotionally, we have also curiously found some degree of empowerment.

Certainly for me it was an obvious choice to do a run on sunday. Without being too pretentious i hope, running is the thing which connects me most firmly with both my inner self and the world around me. There is something quite profound in being contained within your thoughts but firmly connected to both earth and elements, place and time. When dealing with something which might start to consume you in a very negative way, i feel that sort of connection to something other than your thoughts and fears is vital. I feel this even more strongly when it comes to mass participation running events. I find the act of taking part in this activity as a shared experience with thousands of others quite moving.

We have been quite open about our experiences as we dont feel that there is anything in what we have gone through to be ashamed of so it felt like we could join a few dots by doing something together where we could publicly remember our son and raise some money for ARC (a charity we both found comfort in).The stars aligned and the date fell on the day of the Loch Ness Marathon. Too soon for me and too long for Lucy but the River Ness 10k which was part of the wider marathon festival seemed just the ticket.

I usually have a love/hate relationship with 10ks. Unlike longer distances you usually run them much closer to your boak threshold (thats a technical term there folks) so while satisfying they arent always fun at the time. Running together was clearly going to be a different experience to that. The result for me was my worst time every but possibly the best time i have ever had taking part in a race.

We were helped by smashing weather and the route along the banks of the river was flat and pleasant but the real joy was the support we received on the course. Running quicker the experience of ones fellow runners is usually in the context of dodging their phlegm or getting round them, head down. At the even less sharp end of the course it actually all felt a bit more fun. No less effort, but a bit more of a smile and better chat and the response we got to our signs saying why we were running was incredibly moving. I wish we could thank personally all the people who paused to offer us support. It really did help us through something which could have turned out to be quite difficult.

The other satisfying aspect of the day was Lucy's performance. While she had taken part in a number of 10ks before she had never quite ran the full distance. Even in training she didnt get further than 5k. On sunday she ran the full distance, with good steady even splits, even into the face of a strong headwind for the last mile. Proper sprint finish too. Doubling your long run in one fell swoop on race day is a massive achievement. Doing it all in a controlled and skilfull manner is even better. It might not have been quick but it was some proper running and i am very proud.

Post-Run Soup

Apart from that there is my usual "not quite following the training plan" bulletin to come. This week was down as a rest and recovery week so of course i run over distance after slipping in a few extra miles here and there. All the key runs were done though with an excellent intervals sessions through the week which was lots of fun. I am now finding that i can pretty much recover from anything other than the harder sessions or the longest runs within 24 hours. Friday evening/saturday morning amounted to over marathon distance and very few grumbles so i think this decent block of consistent mileage is paying off.