Week 4 - Copenhagen Marathon

Week 4

Week Ending 9th February

Miles at marathon pace (sub-2:15), effort, or quicker: 12 miles
Marathon plan: Copenhagen

Race plan - Armagh 5k - February 13th

Miles - 72

Steady miles - 22

Training Week

That’s a better week? I think.. what I do know is Wednesday I made a conscious effort to drive somewhere to run, and that helped it be a steady run vs an easy ‘from the house run’. Main reason behind that was hiring somebody to help at 262, and so I woke up Wednesday and realised “I don’t have to go into work today and so I don’t have to rush training.”.. lovely. I have to say it’s been lovely, and having help is absolutely fantastic. I think for 3-4 months now (my own fault) I’ve felt in some kind of rush.. always rushing the training, rushing the warm up, 5 miles instead of 8 miles etc.. and so if this week was slightly better, it’s because I tried to slow things down, and focus on good warm ups, steady run with a warm up before etc.. and although it’s not 100 miles, and it’s not up some mountain.. WHAT it is my friends.. is ‘Better than last week’ and that’s about all we’ve got.

Training Breakdown

Mon – AM: Easy 5 miles only (recovery)
PM: Same loop as the AM—slow again, recovery.
(Still need to add in hill strides..)it’s also a good idea to do some drills, and activation work.. this helps Tuesday session.

Tue – Zone 3-4 work

I really like this session - 4 * 8 mins at zone 3-4 w 2-3 mins float recovery.. it’s a good one, and you just find a nice flow, and crack on. For me my loop of the park ends with 3 mins rest, ie it’s just over 2 miles, and so if I do 8 mins at 4.55-5 mins per mile, then 3 mins recovery finishes out the loop, if 2 mins recovery finished out the loop, I’d likely just take 2 mins etc.. it’s not that crazy either way. Whatever works best for you, and your training set up.

Paces 5.05 #1, 4.55 per mile #4.. and so a nice progression, float recoveries 5.50-6.00.

(PM - rest) I should start adding a double run here.

Wed – 8.5 miles steady - last weeks notes.. (This day needs to become 10, and soon... A good marathon build for me contains lots of 8–10 mile days.)

This is the beauty of an end of week review, noticing what must be better, and I’m happy I did 8.5 miles at 6.05 per mile, note to self, this should be 10 next week, and gym should follow.

PM - rest (full training this would be 5-6 miles, but easy only

Thurs – This was a good day, and I’ll post a YouTube about this later, but not because it was some amazing fancy day, quite the opposite.

14.5 miles at zone 2 - sitting at 5.55-6 per mile, and not doing anything fancy. That’s a bread and butter day, but we always try to force something fun into a day like this, tempo, etc.. it can seem boring leaving the house, without super shoes, without any reps planned, but it’s a very worthwhile day.

This will build 16, 18, 20 etc.. then we add sexy.

Fri – Easy 5 miles (then we built a fence all afternoon / early evening, and I was tired, so I rested. fence will help keep the dogs in the garden, and hopefully they won’t bother the neighbours or vice versa.

Sat – Lovely day.

This encouraged me to find some race opportunities, and made sense to make the most of the fast 5k entry. Armagh 5k.

Session - 3 miles tempo - 14.53 - on track

V02 work - 8 * 600s - 98, 98, 97, 97, 96, 96, 94, 94

Very fast work during a marathon build up, but with decent rest 2 minutes etc.. which allows a more strength based runner like myself enough time to recover well etc.. that’s still 4.20 - 4.00 mile pace basically, and so very quick.

You’ll notice these Saturday sessions do seem to go well, and you’d wonder (well we know) is that company? Track surface sometimes etc..? It just means when you’re training solo, or on a road path somewhere by yourself, don’t worry too much about speed, etc.. Remember I did the 6 * 1k, as hard as I could basically and rep 1 was 3.04, We started the 3 miles tempo at that pace today.

PM – Rest.

Sun – Easy run with the group – 12 miles.
Lovely, easy day. This really is the best form of running, and just enjoying getting the run in. Quads tired from track yesterday, but now I have 3-4 days to let things calm down, and get ready to race.

Reflection

We moved forward this week, and I know I said each week I’d rank that, backwards, maintained, progressed etc.. but this week for sure felt like a step forward. it’s got 60-70% of a professional type training look to it.

What’s missing -

Bit more recovery focus, stretching, yoga etc.

Gym 2 x per week

Volume - add 20-30 miles and it’s good

Steady days - Add an extra steady day or 2

We can build to that, but as far as I’m concerned, progress is progress. I might give myself a 6.5 / 10, but I feel like a 11/10 because I made a little progress, but it’s also ok to think “ok what could I add next week etc..” to find some more progress, and that’s the key.

It’s a nice step forward, and if I can keep improving little bits each week, then it’s likely the goal can shift a bit forward.

Business is definitely doing really well, and because I have new staff helping etc.. I should be able to focus on the training a bit more, and documenting that journey to Copenhagen. Means instead of 4 hours in the office sorting orders, stock etc.. I can get content filmed, edited etc..

We got more Pocket tights back in stock (all sizes), for anybody who was sending dms etc.. and of course the marathon plan is here.. That should give you some idea of my training will progress over the next few weeks. Tuesdays session was from week 2 of the plan, but of course I often tweak things a little, as I do a group run Sunday, and so made my sorta steadier Long run on a Thursday.. etc.. you must be flexible.

Score: 6.5/10

Scully

See you next week.