Summary

Even though my training under MC’s guidance has been different to my self-tutored attempts, I decided to keep the same summary format that I used before all my other big races. You would not be able to follow it by the summary alone, though. The genius was in the detail.

Training (from 4 Oct – 3 Apr):

26 weeks

Miles per week:

52, 53, 44, 70, 68, 75, 79, 81, 54, 61, 83, 84, 76, 86, 73, 74, 73, 73, 74, 72, 77, 70, 76, 75, 72, 65 (average: 71)
the jump from 44 to 70 was the Dublin marathon, the drop to 54 was a knee injury. I’m actually amazed how consistent I was.

# runs of 20 miles:

4

# runs over 20 miles:

1 (pacing the Dublin marathon)

# of PBs:

1 (or 3 if you count in the fact that I broke my 5 miles and 10k PBs along the way during the Ballycotton 10 miler)

Injuries/ailments:

- one ballooned knee after running on ice in December (missed 3 days)
- several sore throats that made me miss exactly 0 runs

The seeming lack of long runs is counter-acted by the fact that many of the weekends were back-to-back workouts that were much tougher than a standalone long run. In fact, some of those runs felt suspiciously like the last miles of a marathon (as much as it can do that in a training run). The essence of the training, as far as I can tell, were the steady runs day after day, week after week, always slower than I could have run, for the basic fitness and the back-to-back workouts for the marathon specific fitness. I only raced one single race in the entire training cycle, in Ballycotton, which went so well it almost blew me over.

If I have one regret then it’s the fact that I did not run any 5k or 10k races. Even without specific training I know I would have blown my existing PBs out of the water. That was sacrificed for the sake of the best marathon preparation I could have had. I’m perfectly fine with that, of course, but it leaves a tinge of regret, looking at my existing PBs knowing that I could run much faster.

I was scared enough by Sunday’s high heart rate to take Monday completely off (gasp!). Today I did what the coach calls a Taper Workout. It starts like the marathon might, trying to gradually get down to marathon pace, first half mile 7:20 pace, second half mile 7:00 pace, then gradually speed up to 6:40 pace (planned marathon pace) and hold it for 2 more miles. Jog for 10 – 15 minutes (which was 7:25 pace) and then run 3x800 every 5 minutes 2:54 pace.

My main problem with the first half of the workout was trying not to run too fast. I did the first half mile in 7:10 (a tad fast) and the second in 7:00 (spot on). The marathon pace miles were a bit fast at 6:34 pace and felt a bit harder than expected, not just because of the pace but also because I still felt the porridge that I had eaten 90 minutes earlier in my stomach, something that won’t happen on Sunday. The 800s went in 2:54, 2:50 and 2:52, just about right. The first and third repeats were not helped by the headwind; the second was, obviously, but it did not feel like it. The fact that it started raining was not overly welcome.

Talking about rain, that’s what seems to happening in Vienna right now; the forecast for the weekend is cloudy skies and 14C temperatures, much to my delight and Niamh’s disgust, but it is supposed to be sunny again the following week, which would suit me just perfect. The headache and tiredness from the weekend has gone as well. It’s all systems go and no excuses.

11 Apr

0

12 Apr

9 miles, 1:03:26, 7:02 pace, HR 155
   incl. 3 miles at 6:35, 3x800 in 2:54, 2:50, 2:52