Dingle Training

It’s time again for another one of my standard marathon training summary posts.

Training (excluding taper):

14 weeks

Total Number of Miles (excluding taper):

1210: 62, 71, 73, 90, 95, 102, 75, 76, 100, 87, 103, 100, 100, 76

Average mpw (excluding taper):

86

# runs of 20 miles or more:

7 (1 x 24, 1 x 22, 5 x 20)

# weeks of 100 miles or more:

5

Highest weekly mileage:

103

Highest mileage over any 7 consecutive days:

109 (oops)

# of PRs:

1 (10K), or 2 if you want, because I lowered my 10k PR twice in successive races

Injuries/ailments:

None. In fact, I recovered from a longstanding mild case of PF while doing those 100-mile weeks. No kidding.

I don’t know if miles really make champions (that’s relative on my case, obviously), but I sure gave it a good go. I always tried to ensure that I didn’t run any miles purely for the miles’ sake. I had a few minor niggles, my left foot is a bit sore on the outside, just beneath the ankle, and has been so for the last few weeks. It won’t be an issue on Saturday. My right achilles seems to be slightly sore, but I think that’s a taper-induced phantom injury.

The taper was very long due to the excessive soreness from the Mangerton Mountain race 4 weeks ago. I’ve no regrets about doing that one, though, but ideally I would have preferred a standard 3 weeks taper. Indeed, I felt on top of my game during last Saturday’s run. I try to remember that you can’t lose much fitness in one week, but the legs felt truly stiff and heavy today, and it’s not down to excessive mileage for a change.

Tomorrow will be my first off day since 2 May. That’s a decent streak, not that I have any intentions of starting a running streak for its own sake. On Friday I’ll do 20 easy minutes, just to calm the nerves. On Saturday, I will race.

As someone just reminded me in his well-wishing message, Dingle is not a place to be looking for a personal best, so I can just relax and enjoy the occasion. In fact, that was one of the reasons why I signed up for it. I wanted to run a marathon without feeling that I have to shoot for a sub-3. Unfortunately my mind doesn’t really work that way and I keep thinking about that 2:59:59. But it’s not going to happen this weekend. The plan is to set out at a decent pace that will be sustainable but ideally keep a personal best within striking distance, maybe 7:10 or so, but I'll see how I feel on the day. If things are going great I might push harder, never forgetting that miles 21-23 are going to be severely punishing, and preferably still have some usable quads for the last 3 downhill miles (that’s a big ask though).

8 Sep

6 miles, 47:46m 7:58 pace, HR 142
incl. 5x100 strides

9 Sep

4 miles, 32:03, 8:00 pace, HR 139
incl. 4x100 strides