Marathon training week 3
3 min readSometimes when training for a race things don’t go to plan, this week was one of those weeks. I had laid out plans to succeed and life got in the way and I altered course.
I had planned a short family trip planned to the Hunter Valley on Monday and Tuesday and managed to get in a run whilst there, albeit in very cold conditions and only short 6km aerobic effort. I woke up on Wednesday pre 5am after a long travel evening the night before to torrential rain and decided against running. I got through Wednesdays planned hill session on Thursday instead albeit cutting the run slightly short when torrential rain bucketed on me. An 8km aerobic run on Friday and then Saturday I went to my local park run with the intention of a mid paced effort and after 500m decided I wanted to race. I moved through the field from 10th to finish 2nd in 18:20 and enjoyed the run. In the afternoon on Saturday I had some spare time to kill so i decided to go for a run and add to my park run and warm up and have a long run day over two runs. I ran 14km over an undulating terrain which was good but too close to lunch.
Overall I didn’t do my planned interval session and not properly completed my long run. We move on, sometimes things don’t go to plan and you accept it and move on.
Week 3 plan
Monday – Aerobic run
Tuesday – Hills
Wednesday – Strength session
Thursday – Rest
Friday – Long Run (2 hour 20 min)
Saturday – Aerobic recovery run
Sunday – Intervals 8 x 800m
Hoping to get through each work out and will attempt to fit in the extra interval run over the next couple of weeks. Very mindful not to push too hard and ensure that I am more than adequately rested. Over the course of a 14 week marathon preparation one interval session missed won’t make a shred of difference, so I am certainly not worried about my lack of progression this week.
One of the great things that happened this week was my new sandals arrived. These are the Gladsoles trails with a new denser sole than the previous model that I have. I have ran 22km in these sandals so far and they are a slightly different feeling to the previous model. The denser sole is slightly less flexible than previous however gives a bit better ground protection with still fantastic ground feel. The custom make from the tracings I sent is perfect and couldn’t fit my foot better. One thing with sandals is it takes a few runs to get the lacing perfect, my first run I had them too tight, my second run which was my 18:20 5km park run I had them slightly too loose and thought the heel strap was going to slide off on one of my feet in the last kilometre. It didn’t fall off but I need to make them a little tighter for my next run. These are the sandals that I’ll be running my next marathon in, by September they will be ready to roll though and have 300-400 training kilometres in them.
Looking forward to getting back on track in week 3. Most important thing is to commit to the process however make sure running is enjoyable.
Really trying to remember the keep the running enjoyable as I head into week 1! Thanks!
Good luck with your week 1 training Cat
Nice post Tony, but I would like more details on the program, how long are the aerobic runs? or do you run aerobically to a time? What entails a hills session?
Thanks Matt. Aerobic runs are usually 40-50 mins in duration. Hills means hill repeats. Warm up then a series of hill repeats and cool down. My most used hill is 1.9km with two steep pitches at the start and finish of the hill. I will normally do 2 or 3 of these repeats which will take about an hour.