It’s been a couple of weeks since my last blogpost and here are the headlines:
- Number of runs = 8
- Total distance run = 53 km
- Longest run = 10km
- Weekly target = met twice
- Parkrun attendance = 0
- Other stuff: First organised run event; a few gym classes
Weekly target?
To help establish a routine in these early stages I consulted with some of my online running buddies about what helps motivate them. Responses related to target setting featured – whether setting annual/monthly/weekly distances or setting a target distance for one’s long run in the week. Whatever the actual target type, a common pattern emerged suggesting successive weekly increase over 3 weeks followed by one weeks’ maintenance/decrease.
As a result I spent a few happy hours, with the calendar and the spreadsheet and now have weekly km targets until the big day as well as long run target distances from January onwards. If I make my weekly target distance, I reward myself by changing the text to green! See the snippet from my spreadsheet below.
| Date | Week number | Total in KM | Target distance |
| 05/11/2017 | Week 5 | 25.28 | 25 |
| 12/11/2017 | Week 6 | 27.6 | 27.5 |
| 19/11/2017 | Week 7 | 30.25 | |
| 16/11/2017 | Week 8 | 27.5 | |
| 26/11/2017 | Week 9 | 30.25 |
My highest weekly target following this method will be around 88km before I start to taper. Where this figure sits, if I try to follow the Goldilocks principle , I have no idea. I simply started calculating from what my current weekly total was. What I can be sure of, is that I won’t be running 130 miles per week like Shalane Flanagan did in preparation for winning the ladies 2017 New York Marathon.
Race report
The first organised run of my marathon training took place on 11th November 2017 – the Autumn Shakespeare 10k. Both my sons (CA, elder; I, younger) took part while C (husband) provided support and bag drop facilities…
Arriving at the event presented us with car park chaos, and the less said about the loos the better. Son I arrived first and picked up our race numbers. At that stage we had the usual scrabble for safety pins to secure our numbers to our tops. I had brought 4 – enough for me, but no spares. Luckily CA had brought 7 – enough for him and I to share.
While waiting around for the race start, conditions were pretty damp and chilly and I kept myself well protected in waterproof jacket, woolly hat and gloves. Luckily the drizzle ceased prior to the start and I was able to deposit my insulation layer with C to look after. I retained my windjacket and buff, but was able to shed these too at the half way stage.
The route was on a disused airfield which has been used for drag racing and we were essentially running 5k loops along the various taxi and runways. As well as the 10k, marathon, HM, and 5k events were taking place. Despite the chilly start we soon warmed up and the conditions were ideal weather wise – cool, cloudy, but no longer raining.
CA ran his own race and achieved a time within 1 second of his most recent 10k at Blenheim – so I think he was happy with the consistency performance. I ran with me – it was a gentle jog for him. He stopped me going out too fast and we had a good old chat and catch up on news as we went round. Towards the end he encouraged me to pick up pace and then gave a final exhortation to make my finish line sprint even faster – which I did!!! Resulting in my final KM being my quickest. I am very happy with that statistic – although I don’t think I managed negative splits overall. My target was to come in inside 70 mins and anything close to 65 mins would be great. My chip time was 64m 48 seconds – so I achieved my target and more!
Post run photo – I’m the one in the middle…
In the final 3k my legs were definitely feeling heavy, but having a companion helped me ignore that. I didn’t stop at all except to slurp a few mouthfuls of water at the drinks station. So in terms of keeping going, it is one of my best performances. However time wise – I have in the dim and distant past once come in ever so slightly sub 60 mins. So plenty of work still to do.
CA finished off the day magnificently by providing post match nourishment – a Keith Floyd recipe murgh masala which was just what the doctor ordered.
With 160 days to go, I am starting to find my feet (and legs and lungs) in running terms. Let’s hope I hit my stride between now and April 22nd, 2018!!
Marathon Feat 