Marathon training week 4

My third week of marathon training was a fairly pain free experience other than the weather becoming colder and my early morning runs becoming tough to get ready for. All of my key sessions were completed relatively comfortably which made for a confidence building week. My key sessions were hill repeats on Tuesday which I ran over my familiar hill near home, this went well. My long run on Friday was run on the coldest morning of the week but I managed 24km in 2 hours of running and intervals was run on Sunday with 800m efforts ran at 3:30 min/km which felt good and I could have pushed a bit harder if needed. During the week I traded an aerobic run for a 30 min weighted vest hike to add some variety to my program.

Week 4 of my marathon training and my uni break is over and a new teaching period begins today. This means time needs to be spread between running and study in order to fit both in. I had planned this for this marathon period and will take more rest days to study while still completing my three key sessions to build my speed, endurance and strength. Running is a simple sport and there is no need to complicate it.

Week 4

Monday – Rest

Tuesday – Hill repeats

Wednesday – Rest

Thursday – AM – Intervals (8 x 800m) PM – Strength

Friday – Rest

Saturday – Parkrun or aerobic run

Sunday – Long run ( 2 hour 20 min)

This week there is three rest days, each of these will give me time to complete my required university studies for the week and keep myself fresh and motivated to run. On running days being fresh will keep me motivated and ready to give my best effort.

This amount of running days will form the basis of my marathon preparations until race day in September. The goal this preparation is to keep my training simple yet focussed.

The simple focus is to incorporate the key sessions each week . Hills to build strength,  Intervals to build speed and the Long run to build endurance and repeating these sessions week in week out through the marathon preparation.