Déjà vu…all over again!

New Year, new challenges, new regime…well not really actually. As I embarked upon the first weeks’ training sessions for my FINAL EVER marathon (honest!) I couldn’t help thinking how I’ve become so used to the endless running, often six, sometimes seven times in a week. I keep the running fresh even though I am following the same programme again. I’m sticking to it because it’s tough, it works and I like it. I can increase the intensity and vary the routes I run but essentially the training principle is the same.

I run three, so-called, “sessions” per week and these are designed to stress my body. One session is an interval session and this is great to keep some speed and helps improve running form. The second session is called a tempo run. This helps stamina over 4-6miles and keeps some decent pace in the legs – this usually works in around my 10k pace which is currently 7.15/mi. The final session is the long run and the distance will increase over the weeks, from 10mile to 20mile. The long run should be done at slower than the predicted marathon pace, although try telling my legs that when I snapped out a wee 10miler at 7:50/mi on Sunday. This was much too quick according to my programme (8:30/mi should have been the target – I’ll come back to this) and not something I should really do if I want to avoid injury and time out from training.

This is the thing I have learned most about doing marathons – it is a marathon, not a sprint! Simple really. If you push things too quickly you end up damaging yourself, damaging your training and ultimately damaging your marathon PB prospects.

That said, January has been an excellent training month for me so far. I have been out (or on the machine) 11 times in the past 15 days and that includes five marathon training “sessions”. Tonight’s session was an intense interval workout (6 x 0.5mi at 6.20/mi pace with 90secs rest) but I always feel that using the running machine doesn’t really give me an accurate gauge of where I’m at. I posted about this in a post ” machine vs road “, some time back and my feelings haven’t changed. Although, when it just isn’t possible to do the road the machine is the only suitable sub. Oh yes, I should add, it’s also useful to monitor interval sessions when your bloody Garmin is on the blink – yes the bloody garmin has struck again!!!

So the inevitable question is – what time are you aiming for?

I’m going to stick my neck out here and say my golden time would be 3hrs 30something; my goal time is 3hrs 40something and my fall back is simply to beat my current PB of 3:53. I have a higher target this year because I feel much sharper, quicker and experienced enough to know I can see it through to the end…humble pie in May anyone? 🙂

To all you other runner bloggers and particularly those with articles linked below – good to see you keeping the training going !

 

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