Week 7 of 12 (10th>16th September)

WEEK 7
Mon - REST
Tue - AM 5 miles easy (7:19mm) // PM 5 miles easy (7:27mm)
Wed - 12 miles inc 3 x 7mins @ 6:01mm + 4.5 miles @ 6:26mm
Thu - 7.47 miles (7:42mm)
Fri - 15.92 miles inc 5x 2 mile in average 12:19 (6:10mm) / 2 min rests
Sat - 3 miles easy (8:16mm)
Sun - 21 miles (7:06mm) + 1 mile jog w/d

TOTAL MILEAGE = 70.4 miles

"Around midnight you would find Ron Hill, winner of so many marathons, downing a large port and giving his verdict.'I hate the marathon,' he would say, 'a lot of hard work and not much glory. I've always hated it and that's the truth. All that effort, all that suffering, I must have been mad, bloody mad.'"

Excerpt from John Bryant's book: The London Marathon - the History of the Greatest Race On Earth.

(Ron Hill - second man ever to break 2:10 and nowadays well known for maintaining a 'streak' of going running every day since 1964. He's currently 73yrs old)

The start of this week felt pretty disastrous. I was so tired still, even after the rest day on Monday. Tuesday's second run was supposed to be a reps session but I binned it before even finishing the first rep as I was way off pace and just felt empty. At this point I had a sit down on a kerb for about 10 minutes (very melodramatic) while I pondered the rest of the week. This was the low point. I shuffled the 2 miles home and Lyndsey and me went to the pub for dinner which was a really welcome distraction from thinking about it all.

What a difference a day can make and from Wednesday onwards I gradually felt better and that came through in the running. Starting the 7 minute reps on Wednesday I reminded myself not to worry about pace as I was running it round my usual, fairly hilly, 12 mile loop. That took some pressure off and I was still working plenty hard in the final rep that only came out at 6:09 pace, but did include about 4 mins uphill to finish! The tempo warm-down was quicker than the same session a couple of weeks ago so that was pretty pleasing too. 

Run of the week though goes to Friday evening's 5x 2 mile monster session. This was actually one on Harry's training plan so I was really there to be company for him, but I also knew that the target of 6:20mm for the reps (whilst only moderate intensity for him) would be a big valuable session for me if we nailed it. Well we did that and more. First rep was done in 12:36 (6:18mm) and they just got quicker from there with me just about hanging-on for an 11:52 final rep (5:56mm). I'm now way more familiar with the 2 mile stretch of towpath around Hampton Court than I care to be but it's definitely a great session to have ticked off.

With that session totaling almost 16 miles and today's long run, it actually hasn't felt too difficult to get to 70 miles again (yeah I know, not much of a cut-back week!). This is turning into a really solid block of volume and whilst originally I definitely harbored ambitions of getting into 80+ weeks, I'm not sure there's any point now - it would only be to please my ego and if I can carry on at the level I am it's still good volume and seems to let me get some good quality running done with it too.

So, first build-up 'race' (mustn't race it, mustn't race it...) of this campaign next weekend, the New Forest Marathon. Obviously, more to be lost than to be gained from running this too hard. The key aim is just to get a strong full-distance training run in. If I can finish in something like 3:10-3:20 then that would be a good confidence booster and hopefully shouldn't put me out of action too long; apparently it's a bit hilly though, so we'll just have to see.

In other news, Chris Thompson's 61:00 for 5th place in the Great North Run this morning is hopefully great news for the future of British marathoning. He looked shabby running just over 29 minutes in the Olympic 10K but it turns out he was carrying an injury. This was a monstrous run today though that shouldn't be overlooked. When/if him and Farah do decide to step-up to full marathon we could realistically have a couple of names to cheer in the men's elite field.

Mileage so far: 46, 57, 60, 64, 70, 73, 70

Weeks 5 & 6 of 12 - (27th Aug > 9th Sept)

(some detail missing, I've had to remember everything because runningahead.com is down!)

WEEK 5
Mon - REST
Tue - REST
Wed -  12 miles inc 3 x 7mins @ 5:42mm + 5M warm-down @ 6:45mm 
Thu - AM 9 miles // PM 5 miles
Fri - 9 miles treadmill inc 4x 2km in 6:58 (5:37mm)
Sat - 9M easy
Sun - 24.86 miles (40km) average 7:15mm

TOTAL MILEAGE = 70.7 miles


WEEK 6
Mon - REST
Tue - AM 7.5 miles easy // PM 5.5 miles easy
Wed - AM 8 miles easy // PM 4 miles easy
Thu - 12.5 miles inc. 10M in 62:29 (6:15mm)
Fri - 4.2 miles easy
Sat - 14 miles easy (7:51mm)
Sun - AM River Relay Stage 5 - 5.21 miles @ 6:01mm // PM 10.55 miles inc last 4M @ 6:12mm

TOTAL MILEAGE = 73.0 miles

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed"

Michael Jordan - NBA Legend

What's that I hear you all cry in excited unison? Show us the mileage graph again? Oh alright then.

Some numbers (isn't this fun so far):

• 8x weeks in a row of increasing mileage.
• This is the first time I've ever strung together 2x 70+ weeks in a row. It was hard.
• At one point this last week, I'd done 84 miles in the last 7 days (I've never done an 80+ week; and still haven't 'officially' as that would have to be Mon-Sun to count. Marvel at the weird, illogical rules I've developed for these things. The aforementioned is therefore a 7-day-rolling record)
• 9 days into September and I've already run 106 miles. That potentially sets me up for a 300+ month, which I've also never done.

Of course that would assume I can reasonably hope to keep up the same volume of running for the next 3 weeks and I'm not sure I can. At times it's been really tough to keep getting out there. A fair few 5.30-6am starts to get morning runs in and some of those have just felt like shuffling. You can't expect every run to feel good when you're trying to get in a phase of higher mileage, but still it's tough sometimes keeping the faith that it will pay off. Fitting it all in with work and life whilst still getting enough sleep and avoiding divorce through wife neglect is also getting tricky. Anyway, a lighter week is probably called for now to get some spring back into my stride.

QUALITY SESSIONS
The key one I guess was this week's 10-mile tempo run. This was on very tired legs so it was a good effort, basically an identical time to a run I did about 5 weeks out from London. And at the end of that week in March, I managed 20 miles at sub-6:30 pace in the Cranleigh 21; so if it loosely means I'm in that shape again, then I'm happy. The 40km long run is also worth a mention. At nearly 25 miles it's a long way and therefore a big confidence booster that it went well. I actually set it as 8x 5km splits in my Garmin and managed to run all of them progressively quicker, starting at 7:50mm and ending up just under 6:50mm.

SKINNY-ING UP
A phrase coined by a random guy in our work gym when we were talking about spin classes, as in "yeah, it's good to help you skinny-up for holiday too". Quite. Anyway, it amuses me so let's go with. Turns out running this much and giving up beer (yes, still dry, even though Saturday was my birthday) is also a good way of getting down to race weight. I can see my cheek bones a bit more and I'm getting a bit thinner. I just need my parents to tell me I'm getting too thin and my older sister to start describing me as 'skeletal' again, and I'll know I'm in properly good shape.

THE RIVER RELAY...
is a fantastic team race made up of 5 stages covering 26 miles along the Thames, from Virginia Water to Kingston. It's a favourite with local clubs and we entered 3x full teams this year. I was running the final leg for our A-team and the guys (and girl! Mixed team) did a great job, handing me the baton in a very comfortable 3rd place overall so I just had to protect the gap. Which I did, with 2nd place a few minutes ahead (the stage was only 5 miles long so not much room to gain ground) and 4th place around 2 mins behind the whole way. It was great to secure a podium spot for the team, but I wasn't at all impressed with my own run. I could feel my quads tiring literally after a mile and from then on I was having to dig really deep just to control the drop off in pace as I got a bit slower every mile from there on in. I don't know what I was expecting, I knew my legs were very tired, but sometimes you just hope you'll have some sort of revelatory performance that marks you smashing through a plateau and moving on to another level of fitness. Not this day though. Tick it off as a solid tempo run, be patient, let the mileage soak in and move on.
Self-absorbed race analysis aside, it was really great to catch up with some club mates in the sunshine afterwards. And our 3rd place out of 37 teams won us £175 for our nominated charity, a tidy morning's work

6 WEEKS TO GO
Ok, so that means only 4 more weeks of heavy training, then it's taper-time again. Up to now I haven't really had any plans for build-up races ( I did a lot in the lead up to London), but plans have now finally come together;
Sun 23rd Sept - New Forest Marathon (will be run as a full-distance training run, managed to get a late entry today!)
Sat 29th Sept - Battersea Park 10K
Sun 14th Oct - Great Eastern Half (still 50:50, haven't decided if it's too close to Amsterdam for a flat-out effort)

There, they should ensure that both endurance and speed are finally-tuned by the big day; or they'll ensure I'm thoroughly burnt out! Still, in for a penny...

Mileage so far: 46, 57, 60, 64, 70, 73