In my BOSTON MARATHON TRAINING: WEEK 1 & 2 update I talked about what I had been up to in the two months since the New York City Marathon before heading into the first two weeks back on the marathon training wagon.  I had a few issues with my long runs in both week 1 and 2 so the big main aim for these next two weeks is to get that long run nailed down again and bank so good miles.

WEEK 3 – 20th – 26th January:

This week consisted of a long run, two faster sessions and four easy runs.

Wednesday was Speed Endurance Intervals which was 6 x 800m @ goal marathon pace of 6:50min/mile with 90sec recovery, then Friday was more endurance work with 2 miles @ 7:00min/mile, 3 min recovery, 2 miles @ 6:50min/mile. The long run for Sunday was 14 miles this week and to be honest, I was glad to be running 14 miles instead of 13 that were planned on the two previous weeks.

This week I did the long run back at the usual 6:30am start time after my tried and tested pre run/race breakfast. Everything being back to the normal routine definitely helped my mindset. The 14 miles went fine and ticked them off with no issues, proving that it was my pre-run fuelling that affected the last two weeks…. I will try again next week just to be 100% sure but I feel pretty confident I have seen the back of the GI issues.

The focus this week was the two main endurance sessions, building the distance and time spent running at or faster than my goal marathon pace. Over time, these sessions will get longer and hopefully the pace will feel manageable as the distance goes up.

A big week of running but also my biggest week of swimming for a long time.

• Running –  48 Miles, 6h 24m
• Cycling –  131 Miles, 6h 27m
• Swimming – 9,159 yrds, 2h 44m

 

WEEK 4 – 27th January – 2nd February:

Long run, two faster sessions and four easy runs on the plan for week 4, yep, same as last week but slightly different sessions all with the same goal of building the endurance and speed.

I was on a work training course Monday & Tuesday which meant taking two days “rest”, sounds good having two days off but the reality of that is I have condensed seven days training into five.

Wednesday is the new Monday, starting the week off with a 30 Min Endurance Interval session. This was 3 x 10 min intervals starting at 7:00min/mile with the second and third interval at goal marathon pace of 6:50min/mile. More time and miles banked running at goal pace and getting a feel for it.

The next session was an unplanned one, a shortened version of the 1km alternations I did back in week 1. The same pace of 1km @ 6:20min/mile with 1km recovery @ 6:50min/mile, I did plan to do 7 reps but after 3 I felt so exhausted I decided to cut straight to the cool down. This was a bonus session I was adding in myself so no real need to push it too hard to get it done. Yesterday, I had done two big swim sets and the Endurance Intervals, plus another swim set this morning, my body was just telling me it had done enough.

The long run was a little different this week, back to 13 miles but 7 miles easy pace (I aimed for 8:00min/mile) before picking the pace up to 7:20min/mile for the remaining 6 miles. Happy to report that there were no stomach issues again and the run went well, apart from a slight misunderstanding at the end where I thought I was part way through mile 12 but it was actually mile 13. It just meant I could do an extra mile cool down. I finished up with 14 miles at 7:39min/mile pace and surprisingly my average heart was 138bpm, which was roughly the average heart rate for my easy runs a few months back. More signs of progress and things moving in the right direction.

• Running –  48.3 Miles, 6h 22m
• Cycling –  134.6 Miles, 6h 56m
• Swimming – 9,186 yrds, 2h 44m

To see how the next two weeks went, check out BOSTON MARATHON TRAINING: WEEK 5 & 6