Marathon Training – Week 9

The last week of marathon training went through without me running the amount of kilometres I’ve planned but managing to hit all my key sessions. Only managed 66km of running this week and mainly because I just didn’t feel great in many of the sessions.

The key session of the week were Tuesday’s hill efforts, Friday’s aerobic long run and Sunday’s interval session. I completed an aerobic run on both Monday and Thursday with both runs not feeling great and only completing between 7-8km during each. Tuesday hills went fine, although I still didn’t feel great throughout the run but managed to completed the desired efforts.

Long run on Friday was planned for 2 hours 40 min of aerobic running and I completed this although  felt poor throughout the run. From the first kilometre to the last I felt ordinary. Stomach issues made me need to stop for a bathroom break mid run which is something that rarely happens to me. Managed to get the job done but it was a struggle. Felt very tired and depleted after this run. I over slept on Saturday and missed my run before needing to go to work and therefore took an unscheduled rest day.

Sunday I finally felt good for the week and completed my interval session in very hot and humid conditions. Managed to hit all my efforts as planned and felt good through out the run. 12 x 2 min at faster then half marathon pace with a float/recovery of 1 min between efforts at between 4:30-5 min/km. Very happy to end a toughish week feeling and running better then it started.

Week 9 and now just six more weeks of training and tapering till marathon race day. Feeling like I’m on target but need to push hard the next 4-5 weeks to get ready to run fast on race day. This week I’m running a half marathon on Sunday and want to use this race to test my fitness and racing mind. Aiming to run consistent pace throughout and try and finish the last 5km hard. Will also continue to build mileage this week, no time or need to taper at all for this half marathon.

Monday – Aerobic (60 -90 min)

Tuesday – Hills (60 min)

Wednesday – Aerobic (60 min)

Thursday – Intervals (12 x 2 min)

Friday – Rest

Saturday – Aerobic medium long run( 90-120 min)

Sunday – Race – Half Marathon

Looking forward to another testing week, hoping to build my kilometres to around 80-90km. Saturday medium long run will be run depending on feel, if I feel like it feels harder than it should I’ll stop at 90 min or potentially less so I am ready to race Sunday.

The half marathon on Sunday I’ll be running in Galdsoles Trail 8mm sandals. These are my favourite Gladsoles model and at their best over races up to this distance. I’m still undecided whether I’ll run canberra Marathon in these or shoes yet. That decision is a few weeks away.

Later in the week I will have a review of a product I’ve been testing/using from Coolcore. They are an Australian based company that manufacture a range of products from a fabric which provides a cooling effect. I’ve been using the ‘multi chill’ for a couple of weeks now. I’ll post a review later in the week.

Reach out for any questions, queries or concerns

Run well