The 16 week road to London starts now!!!

Week Commencing 5th January

Jan 11th, 2015  /  Week 1/ 15 weeks to go

Well that's my first week of London Marathon training done and dusted. Been a bit of an up and down week. A long tiring week at work. Weather that's the start of rise in frequency of running or just me not getting enough sleep who knows?? Monday kicked off with the 5 mile recovery run which I will do every Monday night after work. Highly motivated that I was running my first training run over the 16 week period. I'm thinking while I'm running that wow thats a long time. But me training for my 8th marathon I know just how fast this goes once you get the first few weeks out of the way. Felt a little sluggish on the recovery run. Tuesday I headed over the track on my own to wack out some 800m intervals with 3 minute rep targets. Tuesday will be speed all the way through the training period. Admittedly this was hard graft. I was failing to reach 3 minutes but didn't want to give it rock all as that was not the point of the session. So just dug in, was very cold too with the track being slippery on some parts. Finished session satisfied. Wednesday is going to be the "medium long run" night. Anything between 8-13 mile typically around 7:30-8:00 pace but this week starting off at just 6 mile. Again felt a bit on the sluggish side. Thursday will be tempo and marathon paced stuff. This week a mere 5 mile with 3 mile at MP which will be around 6:50-7:00 ish. Found it hard hard. Felt more like tempo effort but felt better on the last mile of this! Had Keedy out with me and gave him a slight head start on this so felt a little more up for it using him as the rabbit. Pleasing session as managed to do 3 marathon paced miles (6:54, 6:54, 6:47). Friday will be rest day every week. Really nice getting in from work and just be able to chill so had a pretty much lazy evening. I was thinking of doing parkrun Saturday morning up opted for a lie in with me doing with evening race over Carlton Bank.

Monday - 5 mile recovery @ 7:59 pace

Tuesday - Speed - 5 x 800m intervals on track targeting 3 minutes. 5 mile covered

Wednesday - 6 mile steady @ 7:43 pace

Thursday - 5 mile with 3 mile @ MP (6:50's)

Friday - Rest

Saturday - Hardmoors "Three Sisters" night race (6.8 mile) - 1:37 Garmin watch time

Sunday - 9.6 mile steady @ 8:10 pace

This weeks weigh in : 181.5 Lbs (Starting weight 184.5 Lbs/Target weight 160 Lbs)

Weekly mileage - 37.4


Week conclusion

Been a decent week on the whole. 15 weeks to go! An increase on my weekly mileage and frequency. All about building it up now slowly and steadily. Last thing I want is a repeat of last year. I've also got off to a good start with my weight loss. I have set myself an overall 24lb target to reach for race day which will average out 1.5 lbs a week over the training period. Which is doable to me. With 3 lbs lost this week I'm pleased. First week or two though I'm expecting to be easier. So off to a head start with that. Eating a lot better. Reducing carbs but not cutting out completely and increasing fat intake. At time of writing this feeling shattered. Running just short of 10 mile on top of the night race last night has taken its toll so a chilled day planned with a very easy recovery run tomorrow evening. Just shifted an old crt tv to the tip so my back has had a good workout too! Next week I'm expecting around 41 mile so another slight increase. I've got some planned build up races too which I will be entering next week.

Keedy, Scouse Dynamo Michael King & myself at the Hardmoors night race last night

Build up races planned

• Great North West Marathon
• Locke Park 20 (Possibly as a training run)
• Trimpell 20 (Marathon pace)