The Chicago Marathon 2024 Training week 3 & 4 went well all things considered. I made some good progress and the pace is starting to improve. Still slower than where I would typically be at this stage of a marathon training block, or at least where I would have been going into week 5 of the Boston 2023 and 2024 training block.

Looking back further than that some of the paces and distances I am running now, in this “slower than normal” block, they are faster and further than back in 2017 – 2021 so it is good to look back where you began sometimes and realise its not all that bad.

Week 5 is the last big week before we go on a family holiday to Egypt, I have used that week (week 6) as the easy / cut back week. Less miles, no bike or strength just time to relax and recharge before the last 10 week push to Chicago.

Week 5 – 22rd – 28th July:

• Monday: – 9 mile easy run @ 8:42/mi 124 HR
• Tuesday: – 6x5min @ threshold (10k) pace, 75sec recovery (2 mile warm up & cool down)
• Wednesday: – Non-running day
• Thursday: – 4x8min Tempo Intervals (2 mile warm up & cool down)
• Friday: – 9 mile easy run @ 8:49/mi 127 HR
• Saturday: – 16 mile long run @ 7:25/mi
• Sunday: – Non-running day

55 miles for the week.

Week 5 had it’s challenges but being the biggest mileage week since early April and longest training run on the Saturday since before Boston, I ticked off some good small wins there.

The Tuesday threshold session should have been 7 x 5min but I cut it back to 6 reps. I was glad I did that because I don’t think I would have been able to complete the 7th rep. We all say that and in reality I could have run another 5min rep but the pace would have dropped away significantly and burned more energy than would have been worth it.

Thursday’s longer tempo intervals went well, all four ticked off and on pace and the long run felt comfortable and manageable and still running over the more hilly route which will be a good benefit come 3rd November when running over the bridges of the New York City Marathon.

Week 6 (Cut Back Week) – 29th July – 4th August:

• Monday: – 6x6min @ threshold (10k) pace, 90sec recovery (2 mile warm up & cool down)
• Tuesday: – Non-running day
• Wednesday: – 4 mile easy run @ 8:39/mi 128 HR
• Thursday: – Non-running day
• Friday: – Blend Session: 12min @ MP | 3min recovery, 5x3min @ HM, 90sec off | 3min recovery 
  12min @ MP | 3min recovery (1.5 mile warm up & cool down)
• Saturday: – Non-running day
• Sunday: – 12 mile Long Run @ 7:48/mi

37 miles for the week.

A much needed holiday week and reduced training week. After 5 weeks of building up I felt like I needed this week to allow the body time to recover and adapt to the training to this point.

Plus, remembering back to the struggles of a warmer than expected Boston Marathon 2024, the Wed – Sun running in the 43’c Egyptian summer sun will give a brief bit of warm weather training.

I moved the threshold session to the Monday morning before flying to Egypt. This did mean going out early and feeling slightly groggy but I managed all 6x6min reps, a good sign of progress after reducing last weeks 5min reps to 6.

After that the Wednesday easy run was around the hotel in Egypt. The security at the gate wouldn’t let me out to run around the town and I was stopped from running down the beach too which was really frustrating. Thankfully, the hotel has a “running track” aka perimeter road around the edge of the hotel which was 1.3km each way so the running around the hotel wasn’t like 1,000 laps around the pool but not the most scenic.

Friday I attempted a bit of speed running in the early morning heat and surprised myself. Firstly, I was doing a mix of marathon paced blocks and shorter half marathon intervals a. in the Egyptian heat and b. early morning, fasted and no fuelling. So to hit the pace targets and feel pretty comfortable at it, was a big confidence booster.

The long run on Sunday was more of the same. Running around the hotel, it was hot and no fuelling. Needless to say, the originally planned 14 miles were reduced to 12 miles, a few stomach issues towards the end so I felt 12 miles was enough. The goal for the week was to come back feeling refreshed and ready to hit the last 10 weeks hard so no point really digging deep to run 2 more miles just because I put it on the plan 3 months ago.