After week 7 & 8 was a mixed bag of a good week followed by a bad week where I went down with a cold and ended up missing a few days and then aborting the long run, I was hoping to get back on track from week 9.

I have decided to increase the mileage between now and Chicago, taking a small risk pushing out to my highest training volume in weeks 10 – 14 in an attempt to build up that missing fitness and speed. 

Week 9 – 19th – 25th August:

• Monday: – Rest Day
• Tuesday: – Rest Day
• Wednesday: – 7 mile easy run @ 8:55/mi 130HR and 8x4min @ threshold (10k) pace, 60sec recovery (2 mile warm up & cool down)
• Thursday: – 5 mile easy run into 8x30sec hill sprints and 5 miles @ MP (2 mile warm up & cool down)
• Friday: – 5 mile easy run @ 8:49/mi 128 HR
• Saturday: – 30min @ MP on Peloton Tread
• Sunday: – 18 mile long run @ 7:28/mi

60 miles for the week.

After aborting the Sunday long run last week having not fully got over the cold, I took Monday and Tuesday off to give the body some time to recover. That did mean having to double up on Wednesday & Thursday to make up for it. Both days starting with an easy run.

Wednesday then had my weekly threshold session. This week being 8x4min, all throughout this block I have struggled to run these sessions at the pace I used to run them at earlier this year and last year. This has been due to the shoulder and neck injury hindering my upper body mobility ever since the fall in Boston. Today was the same, another session where I hit the reps but pace being 15-20sec per mile off.

Thursday evening I was out for a second session in two days and felt it, running 4 times over the past 38 hours was too much and I paid for condensing the training into 5 days. I was planned to do 2 x 5 min at marathon pace but even part way through the first 5 mile rep I was struggling to reach marathon pace and the effort level felt too high, I stopped twice and after the 5 miles were up I decided to flip it to a 5 mile at MP session and headed home.

Saturday I was back in the Peloton Tread running 30min of the NYC marathon course at goal marathon pace. No issues with the heat today then finished the week running an 18 mile long run.

Very pleased to run 18 miles, that is the furthest I have run since the London Marathon in April and coming after last week’s failed long run it was good to be back on track or at least heading in the right direction.

Week 10 – 26th August – 1st September:

• Monday: – 7 mile easy run @ 9:07/mi 122 HR
• Tuesday: – Rest Day
• Wednesday: – 6 mile easy run @ 9:00/mi 124 HR
• Thursday: – 5 mile easy run into 10x30sec hill sprints and 7x5min @ threshold (10k) pace, 75sec recovery (2 mile warm up & cool down)
• Friday: – 6 mile easy run @ 9:07/mi 117 HR and 30min @ MP | 10min recovery, 4x5min @ threshold (10k) pace, 90sec off (2 mile warm up & cool down)
• Saturday: – 2 mile aborted long run
• Sunday: – 18.3 mile Long Run @ 7:27/mi

70 miles for the week.

Last week went well, really well in comparison to week 8, I seem to be over the worst of the cold and logged my longest run since Aprils London Marathon. This week will (hopefully) see me run my highest weekly mileage in training, I have only ever hit a 70+ mile week twice, the two Boston / London Marathon race weeks in 2023 and 2024.

Learning from last weeks mistake of running all the mileage Wed – Sat and attempting sessions on back to back days, the plan was to spread the load across the full 7 days and have an “easy” day between the sessions. All sounds common sense, but life happens and things have to move around to fit.

This week was again one of those where I had to move things around but to be honest, it was my fault I didn’t run one of the sessions.

Monday was planned for a double easy run to kick the week off, getting well ahead of the zero miles at this stage last week. I was up at 5am to run 7 miles at 9:07/mi with a 122 heart rate, keeping it super easy and low effort. That evening I had a mail from American Airlines advising that my return flights to New York in November for the marathon had been cancelled. They offered an alternative but that was due to leave JFK at 9:55am on the Sunday, the marathon starts at 9:15am so that wasn’t a viable option. Alternative flights were double what I had paid in February.

After all that hassle I ended up missing the second easy run for the day trying to source new flight options. That continued into Tuesday night which resulted in the threshold session being pushed to Wednesday and doubling up plus running back to back sessions again. Life happens but looking back, I should have just ran the session and left the flights and the stress.

Ultimately, I decided to cancel my New York City Marathon booking and took the refund from American and Sports Tours International. I feel ok with that decision now. I got almost all of the money back and it brings forward that last race of the year from New York on 3rd Nov to Chicago on 13th Oct, giving me 3 weeks less to train.

Wednesday, life happened again, work was busy so the threshold session was pushed back again, plans altered again, that’s the life of an amateur runner training for a marathon. You have to prioritise family and work ahead of your hobby. That said, I am still running my biggest mileage week ever! that is going to happen.

Thursday was back into the thick of it, 5 miles easy with 10x30sec hill sprints at 5am, lunchtime I was out running “Tuesdays” 7x5min threshold intervals, I felt really good out there. 7 by 5min is the longest I have run at threshold during this block so some green shoots of recovery starting to push through? let’s hope so, we are 10 weeks into this block now.

6 miles easy at 9:07/mi again on Friday morning with a lovely super low (for me) 117 heart rate average, this afternoon was the second session of the week, following on from a good session yesterday. Last week I crashed running back to back sessions and said I had learned from that lesson. Well turns out I can run back to back sessions, at least for this week anyway. 30 min at marathon pace straight into (my favourite now) 4x5min intervals at threshold pace. It wasn’t easy but it got done, it’s not meant to be easy though right? stressing the body and mind to get that gains to take forward.

For some stupid reason, I thought it would be a good idea to follow 4 runs in two days including the two sessions with the 18 mile long run on Saturday. Well, I got 1 mile into that and just felt spent already, my ankles or more so the achilles were aching (more than usual) so I listened to the body and headed home, Sunday had been planned as a rest day but I will run the long run tomorrow.

That I did! I ran 18.3 miles Sunday taking the mileage back up to the planned 70 for the week, finishing off on target and with a second 18 mile long run in the books.

It doesn’t matter how you get there, you just have to get there. We got to 70 miles, ran two sessions and a long run. Week 10 done!

After the low of cancelling New York I then received an e-mail from Sports Tours International saying that they had some cancellation places available for the Berlin Marathon in September. I had a 24 mile long run on the plan for the 29th September anyway so figured, what’s an extra 2.2 miles. I signed up! So I am now running Berlin and Chicago instead of Chicago and New York.

A training block where I came in at a low fitness level, trained through the on going achilles problems, shoulder, neck and back mobility issues from Boston and now running a marathon in week 14. It’s all part of the fun.