Week 7: Stepping up a gear
Monday
After Sunday’s mammoth effort, I was still feeling the effects of that exhausting fourteen-mile run. My legs are still aching, which isn’t really a good sign, especially as my plan dictates that I should have gone training today. I have no idea how anyone other than an athlete could have done a five-mile run today after yesterday’s effort. I feel like the graduation to epically long runs has come about rather soon, when compared to my training for my last marathon in Dublin.
However, that has probably something to do with the fact that this new “non-linear periodisation” training plan is designed to fit a lot of training into a very short period and that I started this phase of my training much closer to the actual marathon than I have ever done before.
Tuesday
It was quite tough going over the first two miles as my muscles warmed up. The last three miles were easier, though I was still quite tired though by the end of it. The four 10-second hill sprints made me feel better, but I still felt more tired doing them than last time, which is not a good sign.
Wednesday
The plan for today was one mile at easy pace, then three miles at tempo pace (basically as fast as I can go without ), then another easy mile to finish with. This is always a deceptively simple run which hides a quite intensive and tiring three mile run in the middle of it. It always sounds easier than it is. I had a burst of energy between miles two and three, the challenge is sustaining that level of exertion over three miles. By the end of it, I felt very tired but not exhausted.
Thursday
Today I ran two miles at four miles at easy pace with two miles at moderate pace sandwiched in the middle. I was feeling quite good until the end of the moderate miles. The last two miles felt quite difficult, but the I had just run two moderate miles so maybe that’s not too surprising. The major bit of fun on this run was when I ran down onto the southern end of the North Bay beach. Unfortunately, the tide had come in further than I could see from the promenade, and cut off my route. So I had to make a slight diversion by climbing up onto the sea wall and making good my escape. I don’t recommend doing it because it is covered in slippy, slimy algae and sea weed, which didn’t make it easy.
Sunday
Now that my Sunday long runs are getting really long, I decided that I needed a better system to my current one of just running one big xx-miles long circuit. Whilst I did enjoy doing things like running to Filey and back during training for my last marathon, those type of runs are just too inflexible for this time round. What if I got injured, or just burnt out? I would still have the remaining miles to walk home and I also could only take as much fluids as I could carry, which inevitably wasn’t enough.
So this time round I’ve decided to go with a laps system. I start at my usual location, but each lap finishes at my home, where I can switch over empty bottles for full ones (and also make use of the facilities if necessary). This also allows me to break up longer distances into smaller chunks, which makes them easier to swallow (or at least makes it seem like they are).
I split my sixteen mile long run into three laps: One six-mile lap and two five-mile laps. It was unseasonably bright sunshine and quite mild as well – perfect running weather. My lap system was working well, but at the end of the first one, I felt like I was already succumbing to tiredness. After completing the second mile of my second lap, I was so tired I wondered how I would be able to complete the remaining eight miles.
I pressed on. Running past the Sea Life Centre for the third and final time I felt like three laps along the same route was a little excessive, as I was by now quite bored of running the same route for the third time. This didn’t help distract me from the tremendous aching in my legs either. Just a mile later, running through Peasholm Park, I felt as though my leg muscles were ready to explode.
Fortunately, they didn’t and I managed to finish in just under four hours, which surprised me a little, as I didn’t think that I had been running for that long. That time is slower than my hopeful marathon pace, but at the moment, I’m not worried.