Week 4 – Marathon training – 23rd January
What a week of extremities it has been weather wise, from freezing fog and -3 on Tuesday to a fine a mild 12 degrees whilst out running on Saturday – bizarre! It certainly does throw you into chaos when deciding what to wear.
On the training front, it has been another good week and yippee we are still sticking to the plan. Tuesday’s Stroud AC training session was another killer, Mrs P-H certainly knows how to design them, we all consoled ourselves with no pain no gain!!! It consisted of a 1 mile warm up, 1.2k circular effort session on an undulating circuit, followed by 800m, 600m, 400m & the grand finale a 200m mad sprint, 6 miles covered in total! I was very pleased to be first lady to finish in our group and when I looked around I realised I was in fact the 2nd oldest lady 🙂 I gave it my all.
On Thursday, I squeezed in a 5 mile hilly run around Ruscombe & Randwick at lunchtime in order to attend a birthday meal early in the evening. I can just about fit in a run and get showered in my lunch break which is good.
Graeme has managed to run after work this week which is also good so his mileage is gradually creeping up. He chose our long Saturday run which started at the Pilot Inn at Quedgeley and took us on the canal tow path all the way to Gloucester Docks and back with an extra 1 mile session to Elmore. In total we covered 9.20 miles. I have to say, it’s not the best run I have had recently even though when I looked at the splits afterwards I was pleased.
It has taken me a while to work out why I felt awful for most of the run and I have come to the conclusion that firstly I was overdressed, the weather had fooled me, it was over 10 degrees. I really must resort to 3/4 running tights and a t-shirt in milder conditions and ditch the cold weather kit. Secondly, I had foolishly eaten a large packet of rice crackers on Friday which played havoc with my stomach, leading to multiple toilet trips – NOT GOOD! I most certainly was dehydrated.
Mile 2 was at 8:40 pace which was too quite, this lead to some shouting and moaning at mile 4 to readjust the pace back to 9:30. I apologise to all the Saturday afternoon strollers near Gloucester for my unsocialable outbursts, they must have thought I was crazy but I am so determined to get this right.
Today (Sunday) Graeme is feeling achy but I am not too bad. As we move into double figure runs next week I am starting to think about investing in a Camelbak to aid with hydration which I really need to get sorted and also my mind is turning to how to boost my energy levels with food!
