Marathon training – week 10

Monday: no running.

Tuesday: ran to work not feeling all that good. 4.6km.

Wednesday: my right calf started feeling tight yesterday and is no better today, but no worse. I set out for work feeling a bit tentative but it was fine and other than being very hot I enjoyed my commute much more than yesterday. 5km. The run home was less fun as I was pretty tired. 4.6km

Thursday: no running, and I ate a kebab. A KEBAB!!

Friday: no running.

Saturday: I was staying at my friend’s house in Berkhamsted, and went for a run before we headed out for a day walking. The fields behind the town were really muddy and at one point I surfed down a hill, to the amusement of a woman out walking her dog. I have no idea how I stayed upright! I was glad I’d packed my trail shoes as even when I went down to the canal tow path it was muddy. On the way back to the house I went along a street that had signs up saying that 14 cats had been killed by speeding motorists last year and I thought that it seemed like an unbelievably high number for a street of around 50 houses. Adjacent to the street is the west coast main line. I wonder if that has any impact… 7.8km (followed by another 7km walking).

Sunday: I meant to go out early but I didn’t feel good. Once I started feeling better I procrastinated for so long that it was 5pm by the time I went out. I did a few loops of the parks and my stomach wasn’t feeling great so I made use of the loos in Dulwich Park before heading up to Crystal Palace. I hadn’t eaten, apart from breakfast, so I felt absolutely awful and my hands were incredibly cold. I tried to eat some jelly beans but my right hand especially didn’t work at all. By the time I made it home I was a bit of a mess. It took 10 minutes to open the front door as my hands couldn’t do it. Once in, I lay on the floor and Matt had to feed me water and take my shoes off and run me a bath as I was white as a sheet and really cold. After the bath my stomach felt even worse and I spent a lot of time on the toilet. I ended up having to take the next day off work as my stomach was still so unsettled. Unhappy days and I’m now really worried about my lack of long runs in the run up to this marathon. 23.7km
Total: 45.7km

Marathon training – week 9

Monday – no running

Tuesday – ran to work, managing to take the skin off my arm again (from the friction burn from the race on Sunday). It’s now definitely shorts weather, which is nice (though maybe not for everyone who has to see my legs). 4.7km. After work I ran along the river to Tower Bridge, where there was a photography exhibition on at the Scoop. The exhibition was great (though I got a little chilly checking out the photos in just shorts and tshirt) but running along the southbank is a pain in the arse – so many tourists, some of whom were definitely getting in the way deliberately. 5.4km

Wednesday – no running.

Thursday – ran to work, nothing much to report except my good luck with the work shower has come to an end and I had to wait 10 mins to have a shower once I got to the office. 5.1km.

Friday – at a wedding in Lancashire, no running.

Saturday – managed to fit in a morning run in the Ribble Valley. I ran in one direction for 15 mins until I hit the main road, then realised that if I ran along the main road for a minute I could turn right and head back along Lovely Hall Lane, which sounded lovely indeed, so I did that. Lovely Hall Lane was actually quite steep and I only realised when I got to the top that there was a nice path just alongside the road, instead of running in the road. Oh well. Saw a Dalmatian and a man high fived me a couple of minutes from home. 5.4km.

Sunday – by this point we were in Kendal, and I’d planned out a 30km run consisting of three loops from Kendal, up to Oxenholme, up to the Helm and over, down to Natland, back into Kendal and so on. The weather forecast was for wet, cold weather so I’d packed accordingly. Instead it was really warm and I was very uncomfortable in tights and long sleeves! On my first loop I popped into the sports centre to use the loo (fortuitous timing!) and on the second loop I managed to meet Matt in town to get the house key and some much needed water. Time was getting away from me (should have gone out earlier!) and I had no food or water so I called it a day after two loops. This was my biggest ever elevation on a run, though, at 246m, and I would have enjoyed doing more, if various factors had been different.
Total: 41km (first weekend without a race since mid February!)

Marathon training – week 4

Monday – I never normally do a recovery run but thought I’d give it a go. Turns out running is so much easier than walking, and the run to work was the easiest bit of the day! I wore my new trail shoes (for my entirely road route to work) and they’re very comfy for less than a tenner. 4.8km.

Tuesday – felt pretty gloomy about the race at the weekend and investigated joining a running club. My legs were still sore but I ran home from work with no dramas. 4.7km.

Wednesday – I planned to do a longer run to work but slept badly and couldn’t get motivated to leave the house. Instead I decided to try out my new shoes on my normal commute. My feet cramped a little between 2-3km but were fine by the time I got to work and the shoes feel pretty comfy. I stopped off at Waitrose to get a coffee and the coffee machine gave me steamed milk instead, which I only noticed when I’d left. 4.8km.

Thursday – no running.

Friday – no running.

Saturday – for the first time in ages I went to parkrun. Since I moved back to London I’ve only been to the one that’s easy walking distance from my house, but there are loads of others nearby, including a new one at Tooting Common. In the end I went to Dulwich as I know the setup (bike parking, etc) well. It was so cold that my face hurt while running but I set a parkrun PB, which was nice – and then went home to eat pancakes, which was even nicer! 5k.

Sunday – two years ago I did a 10k in the park, organised by the local athletics club, and it rolled around again this year. Walking to a race start line is such a treat, and there were less than 100 runners (a big difference to the week before at Cambridge Half, with over 5,000 people finishing!). 10k in the park is three laps, and each lap includes the hill at the back of the park, and I felt a bit daunted. I set off steadily but lost time each lap. Amusingly, on the hill there were some men doing community service in orange jumpsuits, and they heckled us as we ran past. They’d gone on a break by the third lap when I could have done with some extra encouragement! It was less cold than Saturday and there were loads of great dogs out in the park, and at the finish line we each got a medal, tshirt, water and a banana, so it was all round a good little race. I finished over three minutes faster than when I did it two years ago, which felt rewarding. 12.4km in total (though about going for a run in the evening but didn’t – probably need to adjust my training plan).

Total: 31.7km

Total in training plan: 53km