Marathon training week 13

Just two weeks till marathon race day now and the training is almost complete. Week 12 went almost to plan with a hiccup on Thursday when I missed my interval  because I woke with a bad headache and chose not to run. Due to this I added aerobic run on Friday and used Thursday as a rest day. Other than that the key sessions went well, hills on Tuesday felt horrible during my run with my legs feeling heavy and I was unable to get myself feeling good on the uphill sections. Once I got home and looked at the hill segment data I was surprised that the my two hill repeats were my 3rd and 4th fastest of the 37 times I’ve run this hill. This was encouraging that i was still able to run quite well when not feeling fantastic.

Saturday i ran my marathon specific 3 x 1 hour efforts with 20 min rest between each effort. I started very early and ran my the first section on the road hitting my goal pace of 4:15 min/km for this hour. Second hour I ran over some undulating trail and beach sections which is part of the marathon I am running. Felt good throughout this hour and was able to hit a strong 4:45 min/km for this set. Third hour saw the tide rising and the sand becoming softer so I decided to run the first half on the road before hitting the beach and trails for the second half, I was able to hit my goal pace on the road but the soft sand made it tough going on the beach and on some hilly trail sections I wasn’t able to hold the pace I was hoping for. Overall this run went almost to plan and I feel confident going into the marathon that I have the endurance needed.

Week 13, and I’ll begin a taper on Friday giving me 10 days to refresh before the marathon.

Monday – Rest

Tuesday – Hill repeats

Wednesday –  Aerobic 40 min

Thursday – Intervals (15 x 2 min 1 min recovery)

Friday – Aerobic 30 min

Saturday – Rest

Sunday – Aerobic 60 min

Looking forward to getting through this week and then putting my feet up in the following week.

Hope you enjoy your running this week.