Tuesday 24 December 2013

Manchester Marathon Build up Week 3

You know you're a marathon runner when......

Last week a slightly disappointing week of training if you look at quality of sessions and total mileage.  You know your a marathon runner when you are disappointed not hitting your scheduled mileage and 59 miles is a low volume week.  Quite a tough week balancing training , work and pre-christmas build up so on the whole 59 miles is not something to be disappointed with.  There is still 15 weeks to make up for this week and so far I feel like I'm on track.

Other than a few tempo sessions during the week (7 miles on Tuesday and a 3miler on Thursday) the week has been fairly steady and not much to write home about.    A rare complete rest day on Saturday meant Sunday was the opportunity to salvage something from the week and get the long runs back on the agenda.

My schedule said 18 miles.  In the end I did 21 miles.  This included 8 loops (16 miles) of the seafront (or pink) path around the seafront at Redcar.   Not everyones cup of tea but an opportunity to test out my mental resolve with some work on pacing.  

After a steady 2 mile warm up mile splits were 6-36, 6-39, 6-40, 6-38, 6-39, 6-36, 6-36, 6-39, 6-31, 6-27, 6-30, 6-31, 6-34, 6-30, 6-32, 6-34, 6-38 followed by a 2 mile warm down.  

For anyone tackling a marathon in the Spring its worth checking out this article by Alberto Salazar who knows a thing or two about running marathons...

http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/running/Alberto-Salazars-Ten-Golden-Rules.html

GOLDEN RULE No 9. TACKLE DOUBT HEAD-ON At some point you're going to push yourself harder, you're going to enter into a gray area that can be painful, and you're going to doubt yourself. Push through it. Never think you are mentally weak.

That was kind of the point of my Sunday long run this week....

Stats for the week:

Total Miles:   59.5 miles
Longest Run:  21 miles
Ave Speed:   9 miles per hour.
Best Run: Long run 21 miles @ ave pace 6-43.
Weeks until Manchester Marathon:   15 weeks
Next Race:  Helsby Half Marathon.

Merry Christmas...


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