Cork marathon training- 10 weeks (or so) to go!!!

Week of  25^th March

Easter holidays for 2 weeks so will be making the most of the time to get into decent shape for my assault on the Cork marathon. Will be looking to get under 3.30 again- ideally PB it .

However there is a lot of work to be done between now and then,  starting in the next two weeks. Looking at the schedule for this week filled me with a mixture of excitement and foreboding. Jogged 4 miles at 9.38 pace on Monday. The idea as always with these runs is to get the heart rate down low and keep the legs refreshed for the rest of the week. Can’t say I did a great job in either count. The heart rate averaged out at 148 which is about 18 beats too high for the pace I was doing. The stats never lie though as on Tuesday morning I didn’t feel hugely fresh going into my tempo workout.  Also I was more dreading the prospect of it than being actually focused on what I was supposed to do. The idea was to run 2 miles warmup and a 1 mile cooldown with a 5 mile tempo sandwiched in between.

I started these tempos (with a 3 mile effort) on the 19^th February and have managed to complete one every two weeks or so since then. Hopefully by end of May I will be able to complete 7 or 8 miles tempo pace, ideally at sub 7 minute pace.

Anyway I didn’t manage to run a sub 7 minute pace. No where near it but I felt comfortable enough all the same. Reasonably happy with the workout considering it was only 8 days since I flogged myself into the ground running the mallow ten and only 2 days since I ran 16 miles. The body will improve and adapt. Splits were as follows 7.08, 7.08, 7.06, 7.00, 7.04. The whole workout with 2 mile warmup and 1 mile cooldown took 59minutes47 seconds.

Wednesday was another solid day. Plan was to run 9 miles but instead of running in Cork city I elected to take advantage of the early morn and run in Charleville instead. Felt really strong all the way through, in particular the last two miles home which I ran at 7.30 pace each.  I suppose the run ended up being a impromptu marathon pace effort. 9 miles in 1hr10mins10 seconds. Average Hr was 153. Average pace was 7.49.

Legs were feeling it by Thursday morning but I was revived enough after doing a nice easy 2.5 mile warm up. Mind you as I faced down the railway road (one mile down and one mile up) there was a very stiff and biting breeze. Last year we were having a scorching weekend, this year while clear is one of the coldest in years. Ran off 8 X ½ mile repeats with 90 seconds or so walking recoveries in between. Funnily enough I was always faster coming up the very slight incline for the 2^nd, 4th, 6^th and 8^th repeats but noticeably slower for the slightly downhill  1^st, 3^rd, 5^th and 7^th repeats . The wind certainly played it’s part but the legs were a bit heavy too. Interval 1) 3.27 2) 3.13 3) 3.25 4)3.15 5) 3.30 6) 3.21 7)3.29 8)3.16. Finished up with a 1.2 mile jog home for a total of 7.7 miles. If i were to follow Bart Yasso’s 800 metre theory it means my potential marathon time is in the range of 3.13 – 3.30, but then again I am not really inclined to follow suit. A bit too gimmicky for me.

Anyway that’s my 5^th consecutive day running. Meeting a few mates for a few beers tonight and a rest day tomorrow. Might (or might not) do a few miles on Saturday with a challenging long run on Sunday. Hopefully in a week of two I can get running 6 days a week rather than the current 5 days a week