1 week to Berlin / Team Challenge Triathlon

Last week's 13 miler at 8 min/mile has left me with a minor injury hangover, the first in many weeks of training. With hindsight, it probably wasn't the best route to have chosen for my marathon pace long run. Throwing in unnecessary steep hills on top of the exhaustion levels I was running at, 14 weeks into my training, was just that, unnecessary.

The pain is completely bearable, at least it has been for the sub-hour sessions I've put in this week. Best bet I feel is to not overdo it and apply the usual combination of ibuprofen gel and ice. I think I strained something pushing up onto my toes, while running up a steep hill. The pain runs from my achilles, down across the ball of my foot until it reaches my big toe. But, as I say, it's not severe and too late to worry about it now anyway. Always good to get your pre-race excuses in anyway!

The taper is in full effect and this week's training was certainly less intense than last week's. Intervals were based around 1k reps and Thursday's tempo run was a 10km river loop with the first 2 miles easy and then a 3 mile blast at 6:45 min/mile, which was challenging to maintain.

More photos...

I rounded off the first week of taper with a triathlon. No, I'm not insane, it was a relatively short triathlon and, more than that, it was a team event (The Fix's TRI Challenge Team Triathlon). This meant that, while we all completed every event, we had ample time to recover between legs. It's a good race to introduce triathlon to novices as you get to do all the events, don't have to worry about transitions and get to catch up with your mates and take in the atmosphere, while the other member of your team is off doing their bit.

It's the first training plan run I've missed, since switching onto the FIRST training program about 7 weeks ago. I was supposed to have done 10 miles, instead I exercised for about an hour at a greater intensity, but only ran for 5km. It's going to have to do and it's probably rested my injury more than a 10 miler would have.

Boy am I looking forward to that cold pint of lager this time next week!

Race Result: 2:59:03 - 32nd (out of 91); distances 3 x 400m swim, 3 x 15km cycle, 3 x 5km run (results...)

Week commencing Sunday 12th September

Total exercise: 4h 48m
Distance covered: 85km

• 60km cycling (incl. 15km in triathlon)
  
• 1.7km swimming (incl. 400m in triathlon)
  
• 23.3km running (incl. 5km in triathlon)
  

Breakdown:

• 5 x 1km reps @ 3:40 min/km, with 400m jog recoveries
  
• 2M easy; 6M @ 6:45 min/mile; 1M easy
  
• 5km @ 4 min/km (as run leg of triathlon)

Final push before the taper

Following on from Saturday's 20 miler, I knew I had to get through a few more serious training sessions, before I would finally be on the taper. As I write this, I'm thankful those are now behind me and look forward to easing off a bit and allowing my body to replenish itself in time for the big event.

Tuesday's interval session was, without question, the toughest sub-hour training session I've put myself through. I'd already run 20 miles at 8:10 min/mile 3 days beforehand, so I wasn't exactly coming into this fresh. The daunting task of having to run 8 x 800m back-to-back, at pace, with only a 1m 30s to recover in between sounded particularly unpleasant and the reality didn't disappoint. For the last few, it was all I could do, in the the recovery intervals, to collapse on the floor and look skyward as I regained my breath. Then, no sooner had my heart rate returned to closed to some form of normality than we were off again. It was relentless, let's hope it's all been in a good cause.

Thursday's run was a slightly more relaxed short tempo session at sub-7:15 min/mile pace. It still took me to the edge of what felt comfortable, as most of these sessions tend to be, and the 5 miles went quickly but I did struggle to hold on to the pace. Any longer and I don't think I could have maintained it.

My final run over 10 miles, before the race, was Saturday's half marathon at marathon pace. An exhausting week of fast paced run sessions, swimming and a couple of bad nights' sleep made this feel more difficult than I'd hoped. At least, that's what I'm putting it down to.

It's said that the most important night's sleep is that 2 nights before the event. You get what sleep you can the night before, but the urge to keep checking your alarm's set and then dreaming you've just woken up to miss the start of the race, tends to put pay to any attempts on a sound night's kip. Hence why it's even more important to get several hours in the night before. It'll be an early night on the Friday, then.


Week commencing Sunday 5th September

Total exercise: 3h 52m
Longest run: 13 miles
Distance covered: 39.9km

• No cycling
• 2.4km swimming
• 37.5km running
  

Breakdown:

• 8 x 800m reps @ 3:40 min/km, with 1m 30s recoveries
  
• 5M @ sub-7:15 min/mile
• 13M @ MP (8:00 min/mile)

3 weeks to Berlin: Last of the long runs

This was the last of the big mileage weeks in the run up to Berlin and the training plan had popped in a sneaky load of short, sharp intervals just for good measure.

With a bank holiday on the Monday, I took the opportunity to slip in my first outing on the road bike, since returning from France. A few weeks off the bike had had a noticeable effect and the legs felt nowhere near what they had been. I guess it was to be expected really, my cycling thighs have already visibly reduced, since piling on the running miles and leaving the bike at home. I can't stop being amazed at how quickly your body can transform, when you improve your regularity and turn up the intensity of your running. Everything starts to slim down as your body starts to tell you, "you won't be needing this, and these can definitely go and, while you're about it, you may as well have a haircut, don't leave anything to chance!"

It was good to have been back on the bike, but this month is all about running, we're only 3 weeks away now, so of course it is. So back to those intervals...

Ten reps of any running sounds, well, repetitive and, probably quite tiring and time-consuming. It wasn't so much the fast bits that worried me, but the recovery runs were at a steady pace and with those and the warm ups and cool downs, this was going to be anything but quick for a mid-week, post-work, post-kids going to bed session.

The other worry was that the last time I'd run 400m at pace, I unsettled an old injury in my lower back. It had taken me 6 months of rest and gentle running to get back to full strength and I wasn't keen on popping my back with the marathon in clear sight. Fortunately, the pace wasn't too full on and my core strength is much improved on what it was when I injured myself, a little over a year ago, so I came through unscathed. The session was repetitive, obviously, but intervals always feel quite rewarding and like you're forcing a real change to the physiology of your body, at least that's what I convince myself.

Thursday night's marathon pace run was tiring, I'd cycled 30km the day previous, to get into work and back and so hadn't had much rest between this and Tuesday's intervals. I got myself through it by remembering that, on marathon week, I'll be mostly resting and not doing back-to-back exercise and that this was why I was finding the pace tough going.

The same mind tricks had to be used for Saturday's 20 mile session, this was always going to be the toughest training run, 20 miles at 15 seconds per mile over marathon pace. I'm not going to lie to anyone and pretend that the last 7 miles didn't hurt. But that's just it, a half-marathon feels relatively comfortable, anything more starts to put real strain on your body, that's the challenge of the marathon, it requires dedication to training over several months to reach the form you require. If you're going to run it, that is. For one, once you've run for more than 2 hours straight, you've burnt off your body's natural store of glycogen, running beyond here is uncharted territory for your body and the point from which you have to keep taking on more fuel, or you'll drop. Getting this right, both in terms of what to take on and when, can be key to maintaining a level head and keeping the negative thoughts at bay. I've not figured out the perfect balance just yet but, through experimenting with different gels, bananas and sports drinks, I'm building up a reasonable picture.

Whatever I did, I managed to get through the training run at a pace just marginally slower than race pace, and felt I had a couple more miles in me. Without a week's worth of back-to-back exercise the preceding week, surely those extra 4-5 miles are within reach.

Week commencing Sunday 29th August

Total exercise: 7h 33m
Longest run: 20 miles
Distance covered: 111.9km

• 55km cycling (including a commute and a Richmond Park session)
• 800m swimming
• 47.35km running (400m reps; 8M @ MP; 20M @ MP + 15sec/mile)

Breakdown:

• 10 x 400m reps @ 3:35 min/km, with 400m recoveries @ 6:30 min/km
  
• 8M @ 7:53 min/mile
• 20M @ 8:09 min/mile