Week 7 - Copenhagen Marathon

Week 7

Week Ending 2nd March

Miles at marathon pace (sub-2:15), effort, or quicker: 14
Marathon plan: Copenhagen

Race plan - 5km Queens Belfast 02 April - possibly a 10k sooner.

Miles - 50 - (2 rest days because of hip pain)

Steady miles - 0

GYM - x 1

Training Week

Reviewing a training week is a great exercise and really holds you accountable. The hip injury didn’t help things this week, but this can still be a positive email with some good advice.

14 miles at marathon-type pace or quicker is solid, and the 10 × 1km yesterday was actually great—mainly because the hip was somewhat okay, and I felt pretty good.

I’m kind of lucky now that, because of work, I don’t feel the urge to run as much as I used to. That meant Thursday and Friday, when I knew the hip needed time, I was able to rest and focus on work. Allowing the hip flexor two days to settle down clearly helped, but in the past, I’d have likely run on Thursday afternoon, tried to keep my routine, and then perhaps not been able to do the better 1ks on Saturday.

There was an experiment done on marshmallows, wasn’t there? Humans' inability to wait for delayed gratification. This felt a little like that—I had to be okay with not doing the long run and also be okay with sending everyone an email about another subpar training week.

Training Breakdown

Mon – AM: 7 miles easy, with some strides
PM: 5 miles – must have eaten too close to this run because I hated it. When I got home, I lay on the floor with the dogs and thought that was it for me… (Glucose was likely just very low.)

Tue – Shoe testing day

AM – 4 × 2 miles – actually a great session in the end:

#1 – 5:13 (On Cloudmonster)
#2 – 5:05 (Nike Alphafly)
#3 – 5:04 (Adios Pro 4)
#4 – 5:01 (ASICS Metaspeed Sky)

I’d love to see these getting down to 4:55, to be honest. They need to, because you have to come back to marathon pace. When you’re doing tempo reps like this, you’ll likely find you’re comfortable running about 5–10 seconds per mile slower than these sessions on race day. For me, that might be 5:10–15 pace now.

More gym work and running volume would help get these sessions a bit faster.

Wed – 6 miles (Planned 10, but the hip flexor pulled at me around mile 1.)

I hadn’t felt it on Tuesday during the 2-mile reps, but I did feel super stiff before that session. I remember complaining about not being able to swing my hips without basically falling over.

Thurs – Rest – sad I didn’t build on last week’s great run.

Fri – Rest day.

Light gym session to activate muscles and get some load through the hip flexor—really needed to do that.

Sat – 10 × 1km track

Around 10k effort, with 75 seconds rest.

Started at 2:58 and sat there for 3–4 reps, then 2:55 for 3 reps. After that, we worked a little. My advice to the group was to pretend you’re trying to test each other but not race—push the effort a little, don’t look at your watch, and just see what happens.

Final few reps:

2:54, 2:52, 2:52, 2:47… something like that. It’s a great way to push things along while taking the pressure off—ignoring the watch and finding your effort.

Sun – Easy run with the group – 10–11 miles.

Reflection

I can’t call this week moving forward, sadly. Sounds like last week, and then I scudded myself. I haven’t had a niggle in ages, but it didn’t help things this week, and I only have myself to blame.

Instead of letting these emails take a negative spin—like I’m not living up to some form of full training—I’m actually delighted with the Saturday 1km reps and how I’ve kind of got that skill back. Skill and fitness.

I had kind of lost the ability to run 800s or 1ks at a decent pace. Clearly, it’s a fitness thing, but if you’re not doing any training at faster paces, it simply won’t happen. I spent months at a time just doing 1k or 2k threshold reps, and then you kind of get stuck at that pace.

These recent weeks might not have loads of volume, but they do have a couple of good sessions that I’m pleased with. Tuesday and Saturday were two great sessions.

There’s still positivity and hope to be found, and running is a positive for me at the moment. It’s the only time of the day I’m not looking at emails, my phone, etc. It’s been good to me lately.

Gym work takes about 6–8 weeks to see benefits, and with 10 weeks to go, it’s essential that I get cracking.

What’s Missing? (Yes, I know, still missing...)

Recovery focus – stretching, yoga, etc.
Gym – 2× per week (protect that hip and rebuild some strength).
Volume – add 20–30 miles, and it’s good.
Steady days – add an extra steady day or two.

Score: 5/10 training – again, the two sessions were great, but still need…

Scully

See you next week.