Marathon Training

Marathon training is going very well. I’m quite optimistic that I will be able to finish it and on my better days feel like revising my goal from mere completion to have a shot at the 4h barrier. But then on some days when 10k feels like a hundred-thousand miles. I come to my senses.

I’m into Week 5 of training. I’m feeling fit and healthy and energetic.

I run to work 3 days a week. Run home either 1 or two days a week. Many of those times I take the indirect route 10k from Bto A instead of the mere 4k straightline route.

Also generally make 5 or more classes per week at the gym for cross training (Aerobics and Body Pump) or stretching (Body Balance and Yoga). I tried the LBT class last week and other than the fact that the instructor kept referring to everyone as “ladies” (there were only 2 blokes in the class to be fair but “guys” would have been acceptable used in the generic sense) it was another good one that will hopefully strengthen my knees and prevent me from hurting myself on all this pavement running.

"I've Got a Spreadsheet and Everything"*

As part of the training I’ve invented the Friday Night Long Run (marathon training usually involves at least one session of >10k per week which I have strategically planned on my spreadsheet training log). Rather than get up early and run for a couple of hours on a Saturday or Sunday I run home from work on Friday nights in order to 1) keep myself out of trouble on Friday and avoid the inevitable “I don’t feel like it/I’m too hung over” excuse on Saturday and 2) To be able to sleep in on Saturdays which is a favoured pastime.

Two weeks ago I ran 20ks home from work on Friday night – This Friday I’ve scheduled a 24 k epic (map below). Each run is now my new longest and feels strangely good especially when running in winter which has been unusually cold and snowy and icey and treacherous in London – As a reward, I leave for a week off of snowboarding in Austria on Saturday.

There's no need to feel guilty because even though beer and pretzels are on the menu a week of snowboarding will be good cross training and I do like to mix up my training.

Once I get back from my snowboarding trip to Austria. I’m going to have to add healthy eating to my strategic plan. My problem right now is that I consider garlic bread to be a food group. It gives five-a-day a whole new meaning.

Photos 1) Well it's pretty much impossible to get a shot of myself running on London streets in the winter so I had to ge someone else. 2) 10 k running route. Isle of Dogs is not too crowded with pedestrians and,when there is no construction, has quite wide and for the most part level sidewalks. 3-4) Victoria park winter. 5) Friday Night Loooong Run. When you start in Canary wharf, take a lap of isle of dogs, and then continue home via blackfriars bridge you definitely deserve a beer when you get home 3 hours later.

*When you start from no experience at distance running and generally have no idea what the hell you're doing it really pays to be well organized.