2016 London Marathon Training – Week 6 (8-14 February)

The sixth week of marathon training began on the Monday with an early morning hour on the elliptical trainer. Was feeling tired and the right leg was feeling a bit tight at times, but otherwise there were no issues.

The evening session has more than a nod to the forthcoming Dambuster Duathlon in mind, as I warmed up for the normal gym spin session with a progressive run on the treadmill. I don’t run much on the treadmill; when I do I tend to run a progressive paced run as I find them arguably more beneficial than interval sessions and easier to perform on a treadmill where pace is modulated more accurately than on the open road with undulations and junctions to tackle.

This progressive run was an easy reintroduction to the session: beginning at a leisurely 6mph, I increased the pace by 0.2 mph every minute until I reached 7 mph then by 0.1 mph every minute until I reached 10.5 mph. The legs felt good and I felt comfortable as I stepped off the treadmill and literally straight on to a spin bike.

I then got off the first spin bike as it was broken and moved onto another. Embarrassingly for the gym it transpired almost half of them had defects of some form or another and I was lucky to remount on one of the good ones. The good feeling from the run continued on the bike as I ploughed through the session with the legs remaining strong throughout. I was rewarded by a PB equaling 4.0 w/kg average and a couple of watts short of 260 for the average.

The Tuesday morning elliptical trainer session was a little tiring but I found myself pushing instinctively quite hard – still some energy in the legs. The lunchtime 10 mile easy paced run was a familiar tale of being a little weary in the opening miles before loosening off and running the final five miles or so comfortable at around 6:40 per mile pace.

Alarm bells rang on the elliptical trainer early on Wednesday morning, as the hour long session felt like an eternity and really hard work, if only to try and keep the eyes open with excessive tiredness. One of my daughters had been looking a little woozy for a couple of days and had complained of feeling really tired, so I concluded I had what she had.

I contemplated long and hard about not running at lunchtime but guilt got the better of me and before I had time to stop myself I was out and running. The first few miles felt truly rubbish, as if my mind was in a haze. The heart rate was really low, suspiciously low. I had 7 miles at marathon heart rate planned, as I forced my legs to pick up the pace at mile 4 it was obvious that running to heart rate was going to be impossible, averaging 14 beats below what I would normally aim to be running. Instead I was running to pace. It felt like an ugly run, the legs not really wanting to know and the form feeling pretty poor. That I averaged around 6:00 for the seven miles was relatively pleasing considering.

A good night’s sleep on Wednesday and I felt a million times better on the elliptical trainer on Thursday morning – the hour whistling by with no ill effects from the problems of Wednesday. The evening was the Grantham Running Club 7:30 paced run aimed at those targeting a spring marathon. As with my own run on Wednesday, we had 7 miles at pace planned. It was chilly, just above freezing, but with no wind and feeling fresh the run felt effortless – the only difficulty trying to keep the pace down. Once the main run was done I ran three extra miles to make it a thirteen and a quarter mile run in total – a decent midweek long run total.

Friday morning saw an easy hour on the elliptical trainer coupled with a a strength and conditioning session – almost as good as a day off really. Saturday morning’s run was an ambitious one and I wanted to be in good shape for it.

As with the previous week I had a long run planned with a parkrun stuck in the middle of it. Last week I ran twenty miles; this week I had twenty two miles planned. This meant waking early and being out of the house at 7:20 am, which the body didn’t much care for.  The first three of four miles were fairly sluggish. I stopped at the Meres for a semi-planned pit stop and thereafter felt much better. The pace increased from just under seven minute miles to six thirty miles by the time I reached Belton House with a half marathon under the belt.

I had to use the facilities again just before the start of parkrun – something is bothering my stomach at the moment – and made it to the start line literally seconds before the off. I had the dubious honour of battling Barry the Beaver and a bunch of CaniX dogs for the opening hundred yards or so before the run settled down. Barry quickly lost enthusiasm, the dogs were keener but slowed after a mile or so. In the mix of runners with human power only, I found myself third behind a guy I didn’t recognise who would go on to come first by thirty seconds or so and Adam Madge, clearly representing Belvoir Tri Club for the morning.

Adam pulled out a five to ten second gap by the end of the first lap. I didn’t know exactly what pace we were running but could sense it wasn’t bad as the first mile was 5:41 and the second mile was quicker again at 5:33. I was feeling surprisingly fresh and on the bumpy back stretch into the cold headwind slowly brought Adam back to within spitting distance.

On the closing stretch back to the finish we began lapping back markers and I was able to catch Adam. Not thinking twice over whether to sit in his tow, I passed and made a surge to the finish. I didn’t look at the third mile split until I got home but it was 5:28. I had no idea of my final finishing time and contented myself with a strong second place finish.

I still had six miles to run so I ran another lap of the parkrun course before meeting a fellow GRC runner. We shared a mile or so back towards Grantham before I parted company and picked up the pace for the final three miles, back down to sub 6:40 miles. I finished the 22 mile run averaging 6:41 and feeling fairly comfortable. A good long steady run, all things considered.

Sunday morning was another Witham Wheelers Reliability Ride. The wind coming from the north made for a quick run to the club house. I knew that it would make for a tough final section of the ride proper as we would face a bracing head wind. The efforts of the Saturday run appeared to tell early on as I felt distinctly average, feeling the need to take my emergency gel well before half distance.

The gel helped and the middle section of the ride saw me helping near the front with a good section of shared pace making. I got a bit carried away on the hill at Wymondham. That over enthusiasm probably accounted for being dropped from the main pack a couple of miles short of the finish when the pace was stepped up a notch and I found my legs bereft of any remaining power.

The ride complete I headed home and straight out for a 10 km brick run. It felt very similar to the previous week – legs quite stiff and unresponsive for the first couple of miles but not lacking pace, thereafter feeling quite positive and able to maintain and slightly increase the pace in the closing miles.

Another week done, and another positive week of training. Week 7 coincides with half term so the workload will likely be reduced a little as opportunities to train will be restricted. That said, the following two weeks see plenty of work with F1 testing and a succession of races at the weekend, so there is the desire to put in another solid week of training before an enforced cutback.

89 Days to VLM – Week Two Training Summary

Week two of marathon training began with a longer than usual Monday run as it was with Grantham Running Club on their Monday Night session. This week there were only two others there. For the first four miles or so I went off more or less at my own pace, knocking off miles between seven and seven and a half minutes. For the second half I was to guide a relative newcomer to the club – Liam – around Grantham and back to the club and the pace slowed somewhat outside eight minutes per mile, which felt a great deal harder than when I was running at a comfortable pace.

Tuesday was my solo marathon paced run – the intention again to run it to a maximum heart rate. Mileage was up a touch on last week – from eight miles to eight and a quarter and the bulk of the run was in the opposite direction. Cold – temperatures hovering at around zero Celsius – and a touch icy in places, I progressed smoothly from a 7:20 first mile to 6:23 for the transitional second mile, then 6:28 for the third mile which included one of the three climbs en route. From there the run was comfortably hard – as it should be, knocking out mile splits of 6:19; 6:13; 6:23; 6:23; and 6:00. The HR though did drift a fair amount over the maximum of 165 bpm, showing that I am 1. not quite as fit as I want to be and 2. my body isn’t yet intuitively sticking to what it knows should be marathon HR. That said, I was happy to complete the 8.25 miles at 6:26 per mile average.

With the HR creep in mind, Wednesday’s run saw me trial the hitherto unused HR Max alert on my Garmin. I’ve not used them previously as I’ve found the constant beeping of previous (not necessarily Garmin models) annoying when you stray into a red zone. I wondered if this Garmin would be a little more intelligent. It was an easy paced run, taking me up a hill I’ve not run up before (And if you believe Strava, nor has any runner) and through Belton House’s grounds. I set the watch to alert me if it went over 150 bpm which it did ion the first hill. I was pleased to see that it did just one beep, a buzz vibration and a message warning on the watch, which it repeated every 15 seconds or so I was over my limit.

This was fine – I’d prefer it if I could press a button after the first instance of triggering an alert so that it wouldn’t beep again for the while you are over the prescribed limit. This for instance could be useful if you are climbing a big long hill and you want to temporarily abandon HR limits, or, as I practice in marathons, run the final section of the race at above the HR I’d set myself for the first section of the race. To the best of my knowledge the watch doesn’t have this function. Despite this slight annoyance I will set it up for the next few marathon HR training sessions to alert me if I creep over 165bpm, as I found myself on Tuesday’s run almost looking more at the watch then I was on the road in front.

More pressing on the run was an incident where I came very close to losing my MP3 player – a fence had to be climbed to retrieve it when it pinged free from my shorts after snagging the headphones cable…. Thankfully I was able to retrieve the player and the clip and the run continued – 7.25 miles at an average of 7:23 per mile.

Thursday saw me reacquaint myself with Grantham Running Club’s Thursday night group. I planned it to be a 13 mile or so run, so it would double up as my long run for the week. Jogging to the meeting place I felt comfortable. At the club were some familiar faces and a couple of new ones – one being a Latvian runner called Janis, who I’d heard great things of – a 2:33 marathon runner and with a half marathon best of 1:09.

We began the run steadily enough but on the first drag up out of town I found myself instinctively picking up the pace, seeing who was willing and able to go with me. Knowing what the answer would be, within half a mile it was just me and Janis running together. Into the dark, and, in places, icy, country lanes, we ran together, sharing the light from my head torch. It was the first time since I’d left Kenilworth Runners’ training nights that I’d been able to run a sustained threshold pace run with a training partner – and it felt great! On undulating terrain, we knocked out seven and a bit quality quality miles: 6:25; 5:51; 6:05; 6:15; 6:20; 5:52; and 6:11.

Realising that I was pushing my luck in terms of exceeding my current training abilities, I insisted, in pretty basic English, that we eased up for the final couple of miles back into town, concluding with a 6:50 and a 7:09. It was then we got to chat a little bit for the first time since the run had begun. Janis’ English is not great and my Latvian is non-existent, but it was obvious we both shared a passion for running, for athletics, and for sport. Back at base we chatted for a while longer waiting for the others to arrive. After ten minutes and just three of the seven returned, I had to call it a day for I was getting cold and stiff. I jogged the mile and a bit back home which made it jut slightly over half marathon distance – covered in a fairly sprightly 1:27 – all the more pleasing because I’d had a mightily painful massage in the morning which tends to leave the legs sub-par for a day or so.

Suddenly after Thursday night club runs being, for the most part, a slow long run, the arrival of Janis – who is keen to train for us to train together – means the dynamic of my training looks set to change. I imagine it will revert to something closer to how it was at Kenilworth, with Tuesday and Thursday nights being faster, harder runs. It may mean that the long weekend run will need to be run a little slower. It may be that I can cope with this increased demand and it will improve my running. Time will tell, but for now I am very happy to have someone comparable, someone quicker than me, who I can run intervals and tempo based sessions with.

Time constraints on the Friday meant that the recovery run was a rushed affair combined with dropping my daughter off at school. Stiff and feeling the cold air (minus five Celsius) I managed four and a bit miles at a fairly slow pace. Worryingly the left inner shin, which had ached on occasion for each of the past three runs, had moaned during the run and continued to ache whilst walking during the day. I’ve not had shin pain for many years, but the area around which it hurts has been a major cause of problems many moons ago – a place I definitely don’t want to visit again. For the meantime I remembered the long forgotten practice of writing the alphabet with your feet and some balance exercises to hopefully combat the discomfort.

For Saturday I’d originally intended to combine a long run with a parkrun. With the shin being a bit iffy and the weather outside looking decidedly icy, I decided to play it fairly safe and put myself on the elliptical trainer for an hour before testing the shin with an easy paced ten km. Thankfully, aside from a brief ache early in the run, the shin was pain free – as it was for the remainder of the day.

Sunday was Witham Wheelers Reliability Ride #4. 45 or so miles on an undulating course. I stuck myself in group 4 – 18 to 19 mph). The opening 25 miles was very comfortable. I sat in the pack, took a share of the pacing, and even pulled the pack back in when I lost some time trying to replace thick winter gloves for thinner ones.

On the only major climb of the day the group splintered. Having been strong on the hills a week earlier, I was disappointed not to stay with the quicker riders – feeling it a bit in the quads and also disrupted by one cyclist’s misfortune of having his chain fall off just in front of me and him then toppling off as he failed to unclip in time. I spent the remainder of the ride solo as I tried my best to stay within sight of the lead group – picking off three or four riders along the way. Although I never quite reeled them all back in – I was happy to only finish a minute or so behind them and that I’d ridden the last 16 miles or so at above 20mph average. I completed the ride at an average speed of 18.97 mph, which was pretty spot on for an 18-19 mph reliability ride.

I’d chatted a while back at the clubhouse, then cycled home and quickly changed into my running gear to run the same 3 1/2 mile loop I’ve done each Sunday since Christmas. Despite the extra miles and effort of the ride just gone and the legs subsequently feeling really tired, the run went very well, coming in with a 6:01 average and 5k passed in 18:46. It wasn’t lost on me that this was nearly a minute quicker than the previous Sunday and nine seconds quicker than the parkrun at Melton earlier in the year.

All in all it was a good week – 51 miles covered on the road and the bike and an hour on the elliptical trainer. I got three quality runs in and the pace generally is heading in the right direction. This week will hopefully be more of the same with a gradual increase of distance. The first day though began with a scheduled rest day, albeit with seven miles of brisk walking with a double school run. It should hopefully leave me well rested for a good marathon pace session tomorrow and a good remainder of the week.