Here we go again, third virtual marathon in 5 weeks after running the virtual Boston Marathon 5 weeks ago and virtual London Marathon last week.

This week has been all about recovering from the virtual London Marathon as much as possible. With just 7 days between virtual London and Chicago, it was never going to be the ideal buildup for a “race” but I am always up for a challenge.

The legs have actually felt fine since Monday’s 30 minute easy run. The question is, how does the body feel? I have tried to get a bit more sleep this week but to be honest, going into race day I felt pretty drained and tired last night.

After running 3:03.34 for Boston and 3:05.50 for London, my second and third fastest times over 26.2 miles, there is no pressure to run this one fast. Being virtual races, there never really was any pressure anyway, it’s just the pressure I put on myself to try and backup the 3:01.09 I ran in Tokyo last year. I think I have done that now.

This weekend, I should have been in Chicago running the real marathon but the virtual is the next best thing for 2020, hopefully, we can return to some kind of normal racing come October 2021. I am not sure what things will be like in 2021 but already Tokyo and London have postponed to October and one can only imagine the Boston marathon is going to have to do something similar. Could you imagine running Boston, Berlin, London, Chicago, Tokyo and then New York City in the space of 8 weeks!

I ran the Chicago Marathon 2 years ago and it is still today, one of my all time favourite races. I love the city, the crowds, the course and the PIZZA!!

So as always, kit was sorted out the night before the race. The forecast was for a dry morning but a chilly 4’c. I am wearing the Nike Vaporfly Next% in the new Mango colourway. Looking forward to trying a new pair of Next% out, my green ones have over 120 miles on the clock, these Mango ones will be my main race shoe in 2021.

Plan for this one?

I am not expecting to be running close to the 3:03 and 3:05 times from the past few weeks. I feel tired and my legs felt heavy during Saturday’s shakeout run. My heart rate has consistently been higher during the runs this week in comparison to last week (same plan on both weeks).

I only ran two marathons 7 days apart in 2017 when I ran the New York City Marathon and Rock n Roll Las Vegas Marathon a week apart. Vegas was a lot tougher than NYC with the previous 26.2 miles, the travel from NY – UK – LV and jet lag.

Taking all that into account, I think anything under 3:15 will be a very good run. My target will be to run 3:15 and see how it feels.

Either way, it is going to be a tough morning run.

5km Splits: 21:58, 21:40, 21:32, 21:39, 21:27, 21:41, 21:14, 21:13

So, if you have read the previous two virtual marathon blogs, you will know that the first 1.2 miles are downhill, then its 3 laps of a 5.2 mile loop, mostly flat beside one 30ft hill then I go back up the first 1.2 miles to collect another water bottle, back down again for one last 5.2 mile loop.

I woke up feeling okay and decided that I would run at 7:05/mi pace and just see how it felt and how long before last weeks marathon was felt in the legs.

The forecast when I woke up had dropped to 4’c and “feels like” 3’c but sunny. When I dropped down the 120ft from the start point to the start of the loop section, I dropped into thick fog and I could feel the change in temperature. Down here the grass was frosty so I think it was cooler than the 4’c BBC weather was telling me. The fog stuck around for the first 2 hours.

So, mile 1 being downhill is a nice warm up. This went by in 7:06. Annoyingly those first 5 miles the pace was so up and down, alternating 7:06 and 6:58 before finally getting into my stride from mile 6.

During all of my runs this week I had started to get a stitch again right in the same place as the stitch that slowed last Sunday’s virtual London Marathon down. I was worried that this would happen again today, but at a far earlier stage. Pretty much from mile 1 I was concentrating on my breathing, taking deep breaths through the nose and out the mouth. Doing what I could to keep that stitch away.

I got to half way in 1:32.05 and felt really good. The legs weren’t showing any signs of last weeks marathon, the breathing was going well, fuelling was on plan and the heart rate was 148 average. Last week the heart rate had been 155 by this stage, albeit at a faster pace.

Having just run 11 of the 13 miles under 7:00/mi pace, I can’t say that I was really sticking to the 7:05/mi plan but I was holding the pace back and staying consistent around 6:57 – 6:59.

With the pace going okay and my heart rate low, I made the decision to push on in the second half, but hold off until I had gone over the hill in mile 18 & 19.

It was this hill in mile 18 where the stitch came on last week and my pace for these two miles dropped by 15secs to 7:10/mi before dropping to 7:25/mi for the last 7 miles.

This week, I went over the hill in mile 18 in 6:58/mi and mile 19 in 6:55/mi. Feeling pleased with that, this was where I pushed the pace, only slightly but I was running 6:55/mi now.

At mile 23 I saw on my watch that I was at 2:39. Runners maths kicked in and I tried to work out what I would need to come in under 3 hours and under my 3:01.09 PB. Anyone that has tried to calculate pace 2 hours and 40 mins into a marathon will know, it doesn’t go well. I thought that three 7 min miles would get me home under 3 hours (forgetting that extra 0.20 miles oops). One mile later I realised my error.

Mile 24 had that little 30ft hill in, once I had got past that I decided to finish that mile off and then run mile 25 at 6:45 and mile 26 at 6:30 to really push for a strong finish.

In reality, it was 6:40/mi, 6:30/mi and 6:12/mi for the final 0.20 mile.

The second 13.1 miles went by in 1:29.07, 2min 38sec faster than the first half.

I was really pleased with how today went. I paced it so much better than last week. Didn’t go out hard and stayed disciplined holding the pace back when I felt good before pushing on for the last 10k.

To have run within 3 seconds of my PB one week after running a marathon and on a route with 640ft of elevation gain has given me a massive confidence boost.

When I ran that 3:01.09 in Tokyo last year, I wondered where that had come from. That time was over 16mins faster than anything I had done before. Then suffering the calf tear four months later, I wondered whether I would be able to get back into that shape and run those kinds of times again.

Over the last 6 weeks I have now run 3:03.34, 3:05.05 and 3:01.12. This has proven a point to myself that Tokyo was not a one off, that calf tear wasn’t the end of my Boston Marathon dream and that I can attempt to run under 3 hours in 2021.

Now the plan is to rest and recover this week. In 7 days I run my third virtual marathon in 15 days, running the virtual New York City. This is the only one of the virtual marathons that has something riding on it. If I can complete 26.2 miles next year, that will give me a guaranteed entry into a future New York City Marathon (hopefully 2021 as it falls on my late fathers birthday).