I was incredibly lucky and our work shut down over Christmas which meant I had a week and a half off to spend with friends, family and my partner. I had the best time off but life did get in the way and running got put on the back burner during this time. I was still active (we went on dog walks every single day) but I only went on two actual runs.
Thankfully, I’d started my training plan early and so a week off wasn’t too bad – my legs felt better than ever, I felt rested and ready to take on marathon training head on! The only issue I had was my stomach – I hadn’t been watching what I ate and because of that, my stomach was not a happy bunny and my IBS had flared up.
Monday’s run wasn’t a structured run. I knew I needed to get back into it and I didn’t want to miss a Monday session but at the same time, I knew my stomach was playing up and a 10 Mile run wasn’t really on the cards. I ended up running 2.52 miles in 24:29 minutes with an average pace of 9:43. I would love to have ran for longer but my stomach was just not playing ball and I didn’t want to push it too much.
Tuesday I decided to do a speed session. I trained with my friend and we found a track nearby which was really handy – it’s nice to change from road running every now and then. We ended up doing a mile warm up, 8 x 200m sprints and a mile cool down. My sprints were averaging at around 5:35 minute miles and boy were they hard. I love doing sprints and I know I need to incorporate them more in my training. New Year’s resolution – sprints once a week!
Saturday was my long run day and I woke up feeling really unmotivated and overwhelmed. I was aiming for 10 miles, my first double digit run since my half marathon in October and I was nervous. I’d done 8 miles before and that was ok but I was worried my hip wouldn’t hold out or I’d end up injured – I also found double digits quite daunting!
I knew I needed to do this or at least attempt it so I got up, had breakfast and chucked my trainers on with my new top (I didn’t mean for them to match so well!). The first 3 miles were hard but my pace was ok – I kept around the 10:24 minute mile which is faster than my marathon pace so I was happy. By mile 4 my legs started to feel better and although my pace got slower, it felt much more comfortable and manageable; Mile 7 was my best mile at 9:58 minutes.
From mile 8 it went downhill (not literally, unfortunately!) – Mile 8 was a horrible, horrible mile with 3 horrible hills and it showed. I finished mile 8 in 12:42 minutes, one of the slowest miles I’ve ran in a long time. My legs started to feel really heavy and moving was so difficult but I managed to keep running and I ended up running 11.06 miles in 2:00:32 minutes with an average pace of 10:53 minutes.
Ideally I want to run a sub 5 hour marathon so I was aiming for an 11 minute mile pace so I’m happy with my training pace overall. I just need to add the distance in while keeping this pace but I’ve still got 16 weeks so I think I’m on track, fingers crossed!
How was everyone’s weekend?
L x
