Week 3 of being back in training and this was the first week that I found a few mornings harder to wake up. This shouldn’t have been a surprise as it was a similar stage last time and is as my body getting used to being back in the regime. However, this week did have one additional motivating factor to keep any doubts away.
Somewhat remarkably, this Sunday was the 1yr anniversary of Pete dying. It barely seems like yesterday we took the phone call to say that he had died of Sepsis, and if I needed any extra drive to keep going and raising money for the UK Sepsis Trust, this was it. We had Pete’s wife join our bubble to not be alone over the anniversary and once again, I really hope that I can get to do this race in his memory.
After Monday’s rest day, I was back on a speed session. The last time I ran this session was New Year’s Eve 2019 and it is remarkable to think how much has changed since that day. The session itself was good as I was able to keep up some extra speed throughout.
It was Wednesday though that I “missed” my first session. In my defence, my son had not slept well and as a result I had had minimal sleep so the option of rolling over was too strong, especially knowing I could pick up the slack on Thursday. This week has though made me realise one massive downside of having that gap on a Thursday. Throughout the last training set I barely ever had aches or pains and I put a lot of that at my weekly strength and conditioning sessions. Having not done any work in this realm since early March, I am getting pain in my knee on my runs. However, I am pretty sure, based on history, it is actually tight hamstrings and IT band that I need to work on to get through in one piece.
I did at least get out Thursday to ensure no session was truly missed, knocking off another 11km at a nice steady pace. On Friday I then took advantage of a rare day off work to get a bit of a lie in and then head out for a quicker run just after lunch.
Saturday was non-parkrun day and despite not really feeling it as I headed out and with only a single glass of squash inside me, I was able to get a good pace out. I do start to wonder if when I hopefully get my hair cut in upcoming days, will the drop in weight and lack of resistance see me push that 20min boundary? Or will it be more of a Samson situation with my powers going?
The week closed out with another 10miles at the crack of dawn. I took the opportunity to run yet more roads that were new to me and tick them off on CityStrides. It is good that with the uncertainty around London still being there, that the mileage is still quite light and doesn’t have too much of an impact on the family yet. The week ended with another 50km in the bank and as we start to see pubs open (and more importantly for my kids playgrounds – my daughter spent almost 30mins on a swing!) then I start to have some hope that maybe this will be the one. Even if deep down I still think my marathon debut will still have to wait until April next year.
- Monday – Rest Day
- Tuesday – 4x 1mi fast, 400m recovery – 11.00km
- Wednesday – Rest Day
- Thursday – 11.24km @ 5:34 pace
- Friday – 6.71km @ 4:59 pace
- Saturday – 5km 20:36
- Sunday – 16.32km @ 5:36 pace
- Total – 50.27km
- Overall Total – 138.21km