WEEK ELEVEN – DONE - Just five weeks left!

Highlight – Sunday afternoon when a handsome young man brought me my favourite large cappuccino as a recovery treat

 

Lowlight – Having not just one but FOUR horrible cold-sores! Not a good look!

 

Inspiration – An email from my eldest big brother (thank you)

 

Has been a strange week, feel a little bit stuck with things!

 

Not sure if I’m just tired, fighting of some virus or at some level a little bored, actually the word tedious comes to mind! This week in addition to my normal busy, work, kids, training, home chores schedule, I also had to prepare a presentation, complete a self evaluation questionnaire, an on line personality type test and right a short paper all as part of a selection process for a course!

 

The result is I haven’t done my day by day blog notes but here is a summary of my weeks training!

 

• Mon – an unplanned rest day as couldn’t fit a swim in.
• Tue – run club, but I took advantage of being group leader and walked slowly up the hill on Spen Lane while I made group 2 run up and down the hill around me several times!Wed – Tried to do my interval tread session but after a warm up and 6min of intervals it was obvious it just wasn’t happening and decided a rest, hot chocolate and a chat with Nicky was more needed. 
• Thurs – Planned rest day 
• Fri –  Am lazy and have a 3rd rest day! 
• Sat – Park Run aimed for a PB. I missed it by about 40seconds but I did run as hard as I could. Also did body pump, which unusually I didn’t enjoy very much. Perhaps this is another sign that I’m still tired. 
• Sun – Long Run 14 miles. Found the whole run hard going and am glad Helen B joined me for about 8 of them!

 I have mixed feelings about my training this week. I know that rest and recovery are important parts of training, but even after 3 days rest I still struggled with my long run! I worry I’m not as fit as I’d like to be or indeed need to be to achieve my goals!

 

GOALS –  Now There is a word . GOALS - food for thought,  GOALS

Now some of you may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned my specific goals for this Marathon.

 

That is partly because if I tell you, you will have something to measure me against and once you have a measure you can either succeed or fail!

 

I find that when you tell people you are running a Marathon you generally get one of three responces . . .

 

• “WOW, how far is that, is it as long as New York marathon/Great North Run/ or some other run they have heard off?” This response delights me as it means I have a non runner who I bore silly with my tails and who are amazed at my efforts!

 

• “What time are you aiming for?” – To this I generally say well I’m not bothered but would be nice to beat my Edinburgh time of 5hr 21mins

 

• And then there are those who ask me my 10k or half marathon PB and start to predict my finish time for me. – This again gives a measure (not even my measure) against which I can either fail or succeed!

 

This happened after my Brass Monkey PB in week 3 and after this I made a conscious decision not to share my race or training run times with anyone except a few of you that give me constant running counsel!

 

I have managed to avoid discussions of Marathon finish times until last week when Liz captured my Trimpell 20 mile time on camera as I crossed the finish line! Now I have to say I am very pleased with my time, it was some 17 minutes faster than what I was hoping for. But as I thought, this has been followed with a week of individuals predicting my Marathon finish time!

 

So I think it’s time to share MY goals with you

 

1. To arrive at the start line strong, fit and healthy having the best possible 16 weeks training!

 

2. To finish and enjoy what I know will be an amazing event

 

3. To run it all (apart from fuel stops)

 

4. To run it as hard as I can. If I do this I will achieve the best possible time I am capable of at this stage in my running life!

 

Those are my primary goals, the only ones that really matter!

 

Time is not important . . . . . . . or so I tell myself. . . . . but if in doing the above I manage to improve on my Edinburgh time of 5hr 21 I will be pleased . . . . . if I take 20 min off my time like I did between Dublin and Edinburgh times I will be thrilled . . . . if I break sub 5hours I will be ecstatic!

 

You see if I’m honest with both myself and you a sub 5hr is what I want, I can feel it, I can almost taste it! There you are, I’ve said it

 

MY GOAL IS SUB 5 HOUR!

 

Just five more weeks, 5 more swims, 20ish more runs, 8ish more cross training to get to a sub 5.

 

So how am I going to get through the next few weeks strong but fresh?

 

REST, rest and more rest – but not too much,

 

FUEL 5* got to get this right now, complex carbs for energy, protein to rebuild and recover, plenty of fresh fruit and veg to provide essential vit & minerals to keep me well and healthy! Wonder if I can do 5 weeks without chocolate, biscuits and sweets? Alcohol not a problem not had a drink since November anyway!

 

SMART TRAINING – keep to my programme, amend if necessary but don’t miss it just because . . . because!

 

BE SELFISH - training comes first! Everything and everyone else I’m afraid will have to wait!

 

FUN – make sure my training is fun, mix it up, do it with others.

 

SUPPORT – Your support and encouragement is amazing and keeps me going, so keep with me guys, just five more weeks!

 

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