6th week of training and only 2 weeks until London in the unconventional plan. Plan was a slightly lower mileage week, Normally I’d keep relatively high mileage until start of the final week with a 5/6 day taper but given my recent tendency to injury I figured a more cautious approach is needed.
Monday after a 20 miler the day before I took the day as rest day, and busy schedule meant I didn’t make a spin class.
Tuesday Morning Spin, then double evening run. 4 miles with Redway 7:30min/mile paced run at a ‘slightly more shit than last week’ 7:34. Legs still felt heavy from the previous week. Followed up with a chatty 6 miler with mates.
Wednesday I was hopeful of getting back to my ‘less shit’ pattern of last couple of weeks but sadly failed and did a pretty slow early morning 9 miles, helping the other runners to get more mileage on runbacks. My hip was a little stiff and I managed to chaff in an intimate place due to poor short choice so overall a pretty demoralising run. 10 days out from the race you don’t want to feel creaky, sore, slow and a bit shit. In the words of Chris “When are you going to start getting faster again?”
London also released their app so people could log in and see start time etc. I’m in Blue 3 and despite initially showing a start time much earlier now shows 9:49. The upside is the pubs will be open when I finish, the downside is a lot of waiting at start as getting the coach down by Redway Runners, a fortuitous choice as they’ve just announced rail strikes on the Saturday that will affect the Sunday marathon as well.
Thursday again failed to get to morning Spin so just a leisurely 7 miles in the evening.
Friday I took as a semi rest-day and just Spin at lunch before heading to Isle of Wight for a family weekend away.
Saturday I tried a hard effort at parkun at the Medina IOW run but found not knowing the course and the wet grass added to my lack of fitness and managed 24 minutes. It’s a nice event but given how amazingly gorgeous IOW is, having the only parkrun held around some non-descript playing fields that could be anywhere in the UK seemed an odd choice. The performance did remind me that accidentally running 7:30 pace for London as I had the year before is not going to happen and I should stick to 9min pace.
Sunday was long run time. Being somewhere new it was a relief not to have a set pace or distance in mind and just run about taking in the scenery and pausing for some photos. Isle Of Wight is gorgeous and I will definitely be back. In the end managed just over 9 miles at a very pedestrian pace, and finished at 37 for the week.
From a very low base in July I’ve managed a relatively structured increase in mileage and pace with three 50+ miles before starting to taper. Given I’ve managed years of uninterrupted 50+ mile weeks it’s a long way below what I would like to be able to sustain but feels about right.
Gels and Caffeine Bullets have arrived for London, just hoping my duck shorts make it in time.
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