Marathon training week 4 – a new routine

Marathon training week 4. One whole month of this down. This week I was back at my normal job – back to commercial law, back to Canary Wharf, back to suits, heels, long hours and busy days. So it took a bit of adjustment to an entirely new routine and my exercise/training took a bit of a hit.

I managed less than 4 and a half hours in total and for the first time, missed one of the runs in my marathon training programme. My cross-training also involved two strength sessions – no swimming or biking.

Run 1: the interval run.
I’d meant to do this Tuesday lunch time until I realised it would be almost an hour on the treadmill so far too long for a lunch time when you take into account stretching, showering and changing! So it got put back to Wednesday morning. 12 x 400m at 11.7kph, although I upped it to 12kph for the last 3 as my heart rate was still quite comfortable. 90 seconds RI in between each run, ten minutes warm-up, ten minutes cool-down.

The time passed quickly, it wasn’t too hard and I quite enjoyed myself. Especially as I was watching David Attenborough’s life stories at the time which is the most incredible TV programme. It’s over now and so I have no idea what to watch on the treadmill this week! 😦

Run 2 – the tempo run

This was the one that didn’t happen. 1 mile warm-up, 4 miles tempo (slightly slower than best 10k race pace), 1 mile cool-down. I had planned to do it before work on Friday but went for a drink with a friend on Thursday night and then it was just so horribly dark and horrible at 7am on Friday morning. I didn’t even get as far as thinking about getting out of bed. The light on my Lumie alarm clock came on, I turned it straight off and snuggled back into bed with James for another hour of sleep.

I thought I might take a long lunch break and get it done then – but was really busy. Then I thought I might do it after work. But I didn’t finish work until after 10pm so there was no way that was happening!

->cross-training – more excuses <-

The plan was for a lovely long swim on Saturday afternoon. I was up early on a beautiful, freezing morning to volunteer at Park Run which was great fun – really friendly people and I really enjoyed seeing the top runners come round. In the top ten were three girls – two who looked about 12 years old and one teenager, and a dad pushing a pram who made it look easy!

After doing our weekly shop and having lunch I was exhausted – a combination of concentrating hard at work until 10pm, being late to bed and then an early start. So it was off to bed for a nap. I love weekend naps. Post-nap I had decided to go to the Giant UK flagship store to have a look at bikes… Long story short I ended up walking out with a beautiful, fully carbon Liv Envié with a Shimano Ultegra group-set. I then had to try to work out how to get home with no bike gear, a massive bulky coat and a handbag! I can’t wait to ride her.

James and I spent the evening with a roast beef dinner, a bottle of red and Friends with Benefits on the TV – it’s an awful film.

Run 3 – the long one.

This week’s long run was 11 miles. We are still racking up the mileage before my first cut-back week in two weeks time. I had a lazy morning reading the papers in bed, we had brunch, and then I got ready to head out at about 12pm. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining through gaps in the clouds, although it was still very windy. It was lovely, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, despite the wind. I had some music and some podcasts and half a gel half way through and I felt as if I could run forever. I was running very slowly, although still faster than the pace on my training plan, and so I picked the speed up significantly for the last half an hour.

I was not impressed by the discrepancy between my garmin watch and Strava when I finished though! The garmin said I had done 11.1 miles in 1hr 55. Strava said I had done 10.8miles in 1hr 45! I think that was slightly too fast, probably due to the setting which means it stops when I stop. Perhaps it wasn’t starting again immediately when I did.

I felt like I never stopped all of last week or the weekend – need to get back into being super busy at work mode and hopefully have a slightly more restful weekend with no bike shopping!