Week 3 Training For The London Marathon

Week 3 Training for the London Marathon

Just a couple of things to start with. To read the opening story about my training for the London Marathon please start here and come back up for the updates. Secondly, i’d love to hear what you are training for, how it is going and any questions you may have. Please comment below.

Three weeks in the book now. I have to admit, this wasn’t a great week of training. The weather certainly made things challenging. Icy roads and footpaths are always difficult to navigate, but this week had a few more curve-balls thrown in. Saturday was supposed to be the Ulster Masters Cross Country Championships. I curtailed some of my sessions in order to give myself the best chance of running well. However, on Thursday, we got notice that the event was being postponed. That was a bummer, but not the end of the world. 

Saturday was the bigger problem for me. I woke really down and struggled to motivate myself. These low moods have been an issue for a while, since my stroke in 2017. I have worked my way back out of the worst of it and have techniques to do so again. However, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t rear its ugly head now and again. So my week 3 training for the London Marathon took another detour. 

I did my run on Saturday. The plan called for parkrun + 5 steady. Given my mood, I decided to try running my favourite session on my favourite route. This meant a 7 mile progression run. This is usually enough to lift me a bit and get things moving in the right direction. I felt great on my run, but almost immediately after, I was back where I started. 

This has continued all the way through Sunday afternoon. I skipped my Sunday long run, against my better judgement. I know it would have helped, but I just couldn’t seem to get going. I promised myself I’d keep this blog going no matter what, so I sit here writing, feeling just a wee bit better. Week 3 training for the London Marathon could have been a lot better! But at the end of the day, I know I’ll have better days, weeks and months. Week 4 starts tomorrow.

Week 3 Beyond Running

The strange thing is, there wasn’t anything that kicked off this low mood. Sometimes it just hits…out of the blue. But as I say, it doesn’t stick around near as long as it did. If this is something you experience and would like to know how I deal with it, drop me a message using the contact form. I’m more than willing to share my experience. 

Monday

Monday was a rest day. I walked around the track while coaching the running club and delivering the session. 

Tuesday

Tuesday was supposed to be a hill session. However, as the cross country was supposed to run on Saturday, I switched it to an 8 mile hilly run. I did the run on the forestry paths up at Crocknagrally Forest. 

Wednesday & Thursday

Wednesday and Thursday were supposed to be consecutive easy run days. Instead, I put the spikes on and did 6 miles on the snowy, icy Derrychara pitches on Wednesday. These were hard, but steady miles which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

Thursday, on the other hand, was scheduled for 9 easy miles. I spent a good portion of the day in the car driving. With the roads seeing better days, the round trip drive to Altnagelvin Hospital took almost 6 hours. I never managed to get my run in at all. Week 3 training for the London Marathon wasn’t going to plan.

Friday

Friday was another scheduled rest day. As the cross country was cancelled, I decided to try to make up a few missed miles. I did 6 miles easy around the lovely track at the Enniskillen Forum. As I did these miles, and ran around the frozen “puddles”, a thought came to me. As bad as that track is, and it is bad, we are going to miss it when it’s gone. The council is doing a complete remodel on the Forum. In doing so, they are removing the track altogether. It is an awful track but at least it is publicly accessible. 

Enniskillen is very fortunate to have the new track at St. Michael’s College. However, it is locked up and non-accessible unless there is a scheduled meeting. So as I see it, right now Fermanagh is the county with the only publicly accessible 400m track with an elevation change. Soon, we will be the only county without a publicly accessible 400m track, full stop! Rant over.

Saturday

During week 3 of my London Marathon training took a downturn as discussed above. However, my progression run went really well. Here are my 7 mile splits:

Mile 1: 8:39
Mile 2: 8:13
Mile 3: 8:07
Mile 4: 7:40
Mile 5: 7:25
Mile 6: 6:40
Mile 7: 6:34

It didn’t manage to lift my mood, but I enjoyed the time during the run.

Sunday Long Runday

Sunday was my long slow distance run. I just didn’t do it. I won’t let it bother me and I’ll make sure to have a better Week 4.

Metrics:

Other than running and missing a few sessions, Week 3 training for the London Marathon was a week of mixed results. I continue to get some things right, while others, not so right. My average resting heart rate for the week is down to 49 bpm. My weight, unfortunately, was up a couple of pounds. And my weekly mileage was down, way down from where it should have been. 

Upcoming Week 4 Training for the London Marathon*:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 8 mile tempo run
Wednesday: 6 miles easy
Thursday: 8 miles steady
Friday: 4 miles steady
Saturday: Parkrun + 5 miles steady 
Sunday: 16 miles long slow distance run