The Road is Smooth (so far)

The first week of my marathon preparation is complete and so far the road has been smooth. I completed all my runs this week as scheduled and for the most part everything has gone to plan.

My three key runs for the week were 60 mins of tempo running on Monday, 20km long run on Thursday and this morning 12km of hill repeats. Add a couple of easy runs and rest days and my week is complete. Monday I had a really good tempo run, 60 mins with 2 x 15 min efforts at 4:15 min/km pace or goal race pace. Thursday I cheated slightly on my long run and ran 19km instead of 20km, the last 4 x km at 4:15 min/km. This morning I got through 6 x repeats of The Nemesis hill which is approx. 12km and my goal for the day.

My favourite run of the week definitely was my long run. Thursday was my day off work this week and I woke up to torrential rain, although I don’t mind running in the rain, when it’s raining this heavy and I have time on my side I don’t mind waiting till later in the day to run. I had an appointment at 10am to get my children passports for our planned trip to Korea in April so I decided to relax at home until then hope the rain cleared and have a run just after lunch. The plan worked, by lunchtime the rain had cleared and my long run went ahead about 2pm instead of 6am. I got through 19km around the river and beaches near where I live the first 15km at an average of 4:40 min/km and then stepped it up for the last 4km at race pace. Felt great to get my first long run of the year done, it was one of my most enjoyable runs for a while.

My right calf muscle that has recently given me a bit of pain has continued to give me a bit of pain. The good news is it is only giving me a bit of pain. The bad news is it is still giving me a bit of pain. I have booked in to see an Exercise Physiologist this week to try and sort it out completely. As I build on my kilometres I don’t want this to hang around and give me more problems so it’s best to sort it out now.

Week 2 is going to look much the same as week 1. 1 x Tempo 1 x Long Run (up to 22km with the last 4km at race pace) 2 x Easy runs and 2 x rest days. I’ll be replacing my hill repeats with 8 x 800m repeats on a track with 400m jog recovery. Looking forward to continuing building my endurance, strength and speed this week. 12 weeks till my marathon now which is plenty of time to get myself ready.

In other news; I planted lettuce in the garden this week.