March done, next stop Paris

March is all but done and I managed to scrape another 200 mile month.   That’s three in a row and probably the highest sustained mileage I’ve done.  Pleased to be injury free and other than a cold I can’t shake it’s gone well.

Off to Paris at the weekend for the marathon.  Finally after 6 weeks I managed to get the doctors letter required to collect – over here they just make you sign a waiver.  Doctor seemed bemused by the pointlessness of it all, said he might as well check pulse and BP for the look of it and signed it off, cost me £15 which I can live with and is valid for a year should I happen to need for anything else.  Doctor said he didn’t want to see me again unless I won so pressure is on.

Legs felt a bit heavy and lifeless on the morning run, and wasn’t showing much pace at the 6x2min intervals last night.    Hoping they’ll be over the marathon by the time I start in Paris.  If not plan is to enjoy the event, let the 3:15 pacer go and try to get around 3:30.

 

Where did that come from?

Today was my last long run before Paris in 2 weeks and a marathon (since I hate long runs).  Plan was to see how close I could get to a 3:20 which is my target for Paris.  This would be a 4 minutes PB but given how well training has gone I felt it was possible.

Had my usual pre-race McDonalds breakie on the start line and set off.  Pace was a bit fast for first few miles as I stayed in sight of the race leaders.  I then backed off to 7:30 pace and settled in.  Legs felt fresh and it was going really well.  With 10 miles to go I realised I just needed to keep sub8:00 for a PB and around 3:22, a healthy PB.

Kept trundling along and was finding 7:30 still pretty comfortable.  Kept waiting for the inevitable fade but never happened.  Watch was beeping every half mile and showing I was still keeping pace up.  Recalculating regularly I was finding expected time kept tumbling until it looked like sub 3:20 could be on the cards.  Had a slight wobble with two miles to go when a stitch made sub 8 painful but managed to push through and in disbelief crossed the line in 3:15:33 a 9 min PB and if I was a few years older knocking on the door of a GFA for London!

An excellent day at the lake and found I was second place as I crossed the line! 

 

February is done and managed to keep my 50 mile weeks running so finished over 200 miles for the month. Was a dicey patch on the final Sunday when I checked mileage just before bed and was on 49.96 so a quick sprint around block was needed to sort that out.
Low points of the month – took longer than usual to get back into my stride after the marathon which itself was a slow one for me. Was probably 10 days before I could properly push. 
High points – two great training sessions. The first was a 40 minute tempo in middle of a 10 mile loop. Managed to hold sub 7 the whole way and felt relatively easy. Had I carried on I would have managed a sub 43 minute 10k, a big PB. Second session was three intervals of ten minutes, kept them all within 3 seconds of each other and clocked 6:30 for the final mile of the final interval. My timed mile on the track in January wasn’t much quicker.

For later half of February I’ve been keeping all training runs under 8 min mile pace. Earlier in month I struggled with post marathon legs.

Goal for March is one more marathon to make the numbers up, keep at 50 mile weeks for the first 2 or 3 weeks and then taper into Paris Marathon in April. Won’t be running my usual half marathon this weekend at the MK Festival Of Running as the wife is running it as her first go at the distance. Very excited and nervous on her behalf.