livslarder

Firstly, thank you SO much to everyone who has taken the time to visit my Just Giving page to sponsor me.  I’m almost at my target of £300 and will be so chuffed if I reach it before the big day in 3 weeks time. Seeing your generosity is what has kept me going through the long runs at the point when I’m so tired that I’m not sure how I’ll ever make it home again.  I’ve been very close to calling an Uber at a couple of points, but like to think that remembering the reason why I’m running

There wasn’t a great deal to report in week 13 and so I’ve been saving that post to combine with this one.  I was a slightly broken woman in the week after the wedding but managed a mid-week 10km @ 5:21/km followed by a few days rest before attempting a 20 miler (32km).  Things didn’t go entirely to plan and I ended up at 14km @ 5:59/km plus a 2km walk but I put that down to a full on week with minimal training.

Onto week 14, which was much, much more productive.

Monday

Rest day

Tuesday

4.53km @ 5:14/km

I took the opportunity of a quite(ish) day at work to head to the gym on my lunch break for a quick 5km.  I know any fellow runners will feel my pain at accidentally hitting the stop button .70km before the end of my run – I swear it wasn’t on purpose, but this run was super hard and super sweaty.

Wednesday and Thursday

I’m really susceptible to illness and unfortunately I spent a couple of days last week lying low and feeling sorry for myself.  I’ve heard fatigue is one of the main products of marathon training, and this is definitely something I’ve experienced to varying degrees over the past 14 weeks.  It makes you feel guilty for not training, but at the same time I could barely muster the energy to get up and down the stairs.

Friday

5km @ 4:58/km

After fuelling up with a huge bowl of cacao and strawberry porridge before work I felt full of beans again and seized to opportunity to squeeze in some interval training on the treadmill.  I ran 1km @ 5.15/km followed by 0.5km @ 4.30/km + 0.5km @ 5.15/km x 4 to bring me up to 5km.

Interval training isn’t something which I have been great at sticking at throughout my training and if I were to go back and change a couple of things it would be 1) fitting in more interval training or training with a group and 2) dedicating more time to core work.

Saturday

10km @ 5:23/km

After getting fed up of spending so much time running by myself I convinced my boyfriend to join me on a post-breakfast 10km. The upshot was that I tried a new route, which added to the distractions… along with questions like “what do you think about the Panama Papers?”

Sunday

32km @ 6.01/km

I did it!! I finally ran my 20 miler after trying and failig a couple of times. There were multiple factors at play and I wish I could pinpoint all of them to re-create on marathon day.  The sun was shining, but not stifling, the breeze was blowing, but not blasting and my legs were just running along and doing their thang.

I did get lost a couple of times which meant a few unplanned stops, but that’s not going to rain on my parade.  Ending the week with a 20 miler was exactly what I need to take me into the 3 week taper before the big day!