Marathon training week 10

After a good week of training I am feeling back on track in this marathon preparation. In week 9 I only ran three times and these were my three key runs. On my Tuesday hill repeats I still felt my fitness hadn’t returned after the recent sickness I’ve had and struggled up my normal hill route. By Friday when I ran my long run I felt good and was able to complete the 2 hours 30 min run fairly comfortably and my intervals ran on Sunday was a good session.

This week I will still maintain my limited running and continue to remain fresh and ready for the sessions that I plan to run. However with only five weeks left before the race day i need to fast track my long run time and distance to get me to the race day in the condition i want to be in to run a marathon over a tough trail course.

Monday – Rest

Tuesday – Hills

Wednesday – Aerobic 40 min

Thursday – Intervals (8 x 4 min 90 sec recovery)

Friday – Rest

Saturday – Parkrun (5km fitness test)

Sunday – Long run ( 3 hour)

This week sees me extend my long run to 3 hours. Over the next few weeks I will build the long run to 3 hours 30 min. With three weeks remaining to the race I will complete another 3 x 1 hour session with a 30 min recovery between each. I ran this session over a flat course in the lead up to the Seoul Marathon and it was a real confidence booster going into that race, I aim to do the same session this preparation however over a trail course near home to give me the best preparation to the this marathon. This is a tough session that really mimics the marathon’s difficulties in one session, I will need to focus on the next few long runs to get the best out of myself.

Intervals and hills this week are standard sessions that I continue to do to build speed and strength. I want to run a park run this Saturday just to test my speed and fitness, last time I ran Parkrun I was just over my flu and was two minutes outside my best, it will be interesting to see if I am closer to my best times a fortnight later.

Looking forward to this weeks training and putting myself into a few tough sessions to build my fitness. Your goals don’t come and find you, you have to go out there and chase them.