It’s been a while since I have written a marathon training log / journal. In fact, it got to a point where I felt like the training journal was cursed. The last marathon training journal was in the lead-up to the 2020 Boston Marathon and the last triathlon journal was in building into the 2021 Ironman World Champs. I am sure you all know what happened with racing in 2020 and 2021 so needless to say, both of those journals were cut short.

So I am a little hesitant to kick this one off but I think we are safe from COVID cancellations at this point. I have successfully gone through 16 week training blocks for the 2022 Paris Marathon, 2023 Boston & London Marathons, and 2024 Boston & London Marathons. Each culminated in a PB and sub 3 in Paris and London x 2.

As the title suggests, the destination for this next marathon is the Chicago Marathon in October but also the New York City Marathon 3 weeks later on.

I am coming into this training block with less of a “base” than I would typically like after collapsing after the Boston Marathon which left me with facial injuries and shoulder, neck, and back ligament damage. To help those injuries heal I cut my mileage right back after running a PB in London 6 days later. In the 11 weeks since London I have run 122 miles. This has helped the facial injuries to completely heal and the shoulder, neck, and back are improving but still not quite 100%.

With that in mind, I tweaked the training plan to cut back on the weekly mileage and build in 2 non-running days a week for the first 4 weeks, again, to reduce the load and strain on the body. I have kept the target paces as though I was training for a sub 3 marathon but lower volume and a lower general fitness start point. We’ll see how things go, it won’t be easy and these first 2-3 weeks are going to be very tough as the body adapts to marathon training again.

The first two weeks were geared towards building that base and introducing threshold and tempo intervals once again.

WEEK 1 – 24th – 30th June:

Week 1 didn’t go to plan right from day 1. After my daughter went down with a sickness bug last week, I went down with it on Sunday and ultimately took Monday – Wednesday completely off.

I started the Chicago Marathon training block on Thursday and ran through to the Sunday to give me a 4 day training week.

Having just said that the first few weeks are going to be tough as I get back used to running longer distances and running intervals again, then throw in getting over a 4 day sickness bug all added to a very tough and humbling first week.

• Monday: – Sick
• Tuesday: – Sick
• Wednesday: – Sick
• Thursday: – 6 mile easy run @ 8:38/mi | 131 HR
• Friday: – 4x2min @ threshold (10k) pace, 90sec recovery
• Saturday: – 7 mile easy run @ 8:48/mi 133 HR
• Sunday: – 14 mile easy run @ 7:33/mi

32 miles for the week.

Not the best of starts to the training block but better to miss days 1-3 than later on, as long as I don’t now miss days later on as well.

The easy runs went well this week, the pace was nice and easy but the heart rate higher than it was 6 months ago when training for Boston/London but this was to be expected with so little running over the past 11 weeks. I am not concerned by that at this stage, experience from 17 marathons tells me that the heart rate will come down as the fitness levels increase over the coming weeks.

The Friday speed session was planned to be 2 mile warm up, 10 x 2mins @ threshold pace (5:45/mi) with 90sec jog recoveries and a 2 mile cool down to finish off. I knew from the first 2 min rep that it wasn’t going to go well as I struggled through at 6:10/mi and had to walk the recovery, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th reps did get a little quicker but I completely ran out of energy and called it off at 4 reps, running the 2 miles back home. A couple of things ran through my mind, 1 being this is the first speed session since before tapering for Boston, so over 14 weeks ago and I don’t think I fuelled for the effort properly. A little out of practice, first day back at school and all that.

The long run was more successful, I was aiming for 14 miles @ 7:30/mi but the first mile was a struggle to get to that pace so I dropped back to 7:45/mi for the first 6 miles, and then as the body warmed up and I got into it brought the pace back down for mile 7 – 14.

All in all, I feel happy with this weeks effort, not the mileage I had on the plan, I did cut the speed session short but considering I was sick for the first 3 days I can understand why I felt low on energy and struggled on some of the runs. This week will act as a good starter and introduction back into the structure and rhythm of marathon training, something to build on next week and progress forward.

As they say, progress not perfection.