Week 12, Session 1 - Recovery Run (3.5 Miles)
Session 2 - Recovery Run (5 Miles)
Session 3 - 5 x 5 mins Thershold Intervals (7 Miles)
Session 4 - Recovery Run (3 Miles)
Session 5 - Progression Run (11.5 Miles - Last 4.5 miles @ Marathon Pace)
This was the first week of the 3 week taper in my training plan designed to keep the legs fresh but at the same time keeping them turning over. I still had 5 sessions to run but 3 of them were short recovery runs and the long run was half the distance of the longest runs I completed in March. I even treated myself to a night out on the 'lash' with the lads . . . naughty I know, but I figured that 3 weeks out form the marathon I could get away with it. I won't do it again before the big day!!
Tuesday and Wednesday's recovery runs were pretty uneventful except for the battery in my Garmin running out after a mile on Wednesday, but it did feel good running 'blind'. I've read that it's good to run without a pacing device every now and then, but I never tend to unless it's forced on me.
Because of the taper, Thursdays interval session contained much shorter intervals than I have been running recently, but there were a couple more reps to do and the recoveries were much shorter. Each rep was 0.75 miles run at threshold pace with 60 second recoveries, which did feel really short considering some previous workouts that I've done letting me have up to 3 minutes rest. I've been suffering with a sore throat for about a week and before this run I wasn't feeling great, but as the problem was above the shoulders I decided I was good to go. The first half of the run was into a strong headwind and my legs felt very heavy and during the first interval I was begining to think that I'd made the wrong decision to run. The second interval wasn't much better, but as I got into the third I turned for home and had the wind behind me. This made things much easier and I completed the final 2 reps much quicker and felt good for it. In the afternoon I started to feel rough and I was affraid my sore throat was finally developing into 'man flu'. This was not a good sign considering I was going out in the evening for a night on the town with some of my mates.
One of my mates has been working over in China for about 8 months and he is back for a couple of weeks and Thursday was the best time for us all to catch up, so there was no way I was going to bail out of this one. As the night went on it became clear pints of ale are the ideal medicine to cure 'man flu'. I'm blaming the G&T's that we had later on for the reason I was feeling much worse the following morning !!
Despite having a bit of a hangover on Friday, I had a great day out with my 2 boys. I'd promised them a trip to the cinema to watch 'Pirates' and there was no way I was going to let them down. We started with a trip into town on the bus (I certainly wasn't legal to drive), where we got some lunch before going in to see the film. It was brilliant and the kids loved it. I was fighting to stay awake a few times but that was due to the late night I'd had not anything to do with the film. After the film we ventured onto the Weston seafront and had a game of crazy golf and then played in the park before venturing home on the bus again.
Due to the Easter holiday, there was no football training for the boys on Saturday and my eldest son was keen for me to sit and watch the 4th Harry Potter film with him. He's Harry Potter mad at the moment, so we had a lazy Saturday morning in our PJ's, which is the first I can remember in a long time. In the afternoon I went out for a 3 mile recovery run which is the shortest distance I've run all year. It rained on me a little, but I wasn't out for long, so it didn't matter.
On Sunday my parents came over for a hectic morning of pressie opening and Easter egg hunting in the garden with the kids and we had a great time. In the afternoon I had to go out for a progression run. It felt quite weird not preparing for it like I had been preparing for the long runs that I had been doing over the last month or so, but for some reason 11.5 miles didn't seem like it was worth the effort. It was a pretty good run and I enjoyed it even more becuase I was listening to comentary of Man Utd beating QPR which made them go 8 points clear of Man City in the Premier League. The final 4.5 miles were run at marathon pace, although when I picked the pace up I was going too quickly and I found it quite hard to adjust to my target pace. I'm hoping that I get more used to it on the remaining marathon paced session that I've got between now and the day of the marathon. I completed the 11.5 miles in 1 hour 32 minutes, which was a little quicker than I intended. My knees were feeling a bit sore during and after the run, but I think that is just wear and tear after the all the miles run in March. Hopefully the reduction in mileage over the next couple of weeks will sort that out.
Hope you all had a great Easter !!
Week 12 Summary - 30 miles : 4hrs 5 mins
Session 1 - Recovery Run - 3.5 Miles
Session 2 - Recovery Run - 5 Miles
Session 3 - 5 x 5 mins Thershold Intervals - 7 Miles
Session 4 - Recovery Run - 3 Miles
Session 5 - Progression Run - 11.5 Miles with last 4.5 miles @ Marathon Pace
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