Well I didn’t see that coming! I knew an update was due this week from the London Marathon organisers and I truly thought this would be the pause button again. Being on holiday this week I wasn’t completely against dialling down the running either. Therefore when my phone buzzed with a new tweet, I was ready to stop. There has been a lot of anger again that they have delayed another 10 days but I do believe that this means they are trying to put something on. Be it elites only or something with a watered down atmosphere, who knows. However, if I can run I will be running as this virus could decided to play havoc next year as well. Overall in the grand scheme of things I’ll have to do a few more miles and what harm will that do?
📝 A further message to participants from Hugh Brasher, Event Director at the Virgin Money London Marathon. #LondonMarathon https://t.co/lGAbZcUZQT
— TCS London Marathon (@LondonMarathon) July 27, 2020
With training continuing I did have to get myself in the groove and as I said, I was on holiday. Tuesday needed a set of 10x 400m so I made the decision to head round to nearby Beadnell Bay and run on the sand at low tide. Running on sand is harder and the wind was terrible (both for running against and having sand blasted at you) but it actually led to a good session. I got a few odd looks from other beachgoers but that was fine and I managed to bang out some quick intervals that gives me confidence as I continue to eye up the sub 20 5km.
The following day I was up nice and early, not really what one wants on holiday! Unfortunately this session didn’t go quite as well. A few km in I started to get stomach cramps and inbtue end had to cut it short. The thing is there are always sessions that don’t go as well as others and you just have to take the rough with the smooth when doing this amount of training.
With Thursday being out last full day on holiday, and Friday a travel day I decided to miss another session. I do wonder if I would be so cavalier if I wasn’t so sure the race would be canceled but there are things that come above running and you have to be flexible. No more so than at the moment in the current environment. We had planned on spending a couple of nights at my in laws on the way home but, as they live in Kirklees, this suddenly became illegal so we had to head all the way home.
This then had a knock of effect in terms of planning my weekend running. After driving hundreds of miles on Friday, I wasn’t going to get up early Saturday and the rising temperature meant that a fast non-parkrun wasn’t going to be an option. I was over the moon therefore when my daughter said she wanted to go for a run so we did the virtual parkrun together. I was so proud of her as she struggled through the first 3km but was determined to do the whole lot and at the 3km mark, she found her groove and we smashed out the last 2km.
This all meant that come Sunday my legs were well rested for my LSR. It was harder to motivate to do 16 miles knowing this could be the last long training run for a while. Eventually I got out around 5pm as the temperature started to drop a bit. The first half of the run did feel long and slower but oddly it then started to fly by, even at the same splits. It was lovely heading out in to the countryside and getting some bigger miles in.
So another unexpected week is complete. This week will be D-day and I think by next Sunday I will have some level of certainty and perhaps a bit of a rest.
- Monday – Rest Day
- Tuesday – 10x 400m – 9.71km
- Wednesday – 10.94km @ 5:42 paced
- Thursday – Rest Day
- Friday – Rest Day
- Saturday – 5km with daughter 45:55
- Sunday – 25.79km @ 5:27 pace
- Total – 51.44km
- Overall Total – 334.87km