Building on last weeks new found confidence I felt much stronger and overall much better during my week 4 runs.
Tuesday saw my return to Run Dem Crew – and despite being the slowest runner at the session, I had a fantastic time with my small but mighty “hardcore hares” group :) We banked around 4.5 miles in total, running from Shoreditch to the Tate Modern, via my favourite bridge to run over at night time – Millenium Bridge.
On Wednesday I set out to run for food (quite literally!) as I ran up from Wapping to Haggerston to celebrate Food&Lycra‘s 1st year anniversary. The girls threw one helluva party and on my way home I stopped by the launch party of Like The Wind Magazine – a new non-profit running magazine that presents a collection of stories about running, from the track, trail and road.
The weather has been absolutely mental the last few weeks and on Thursday I went out in the torrential rain to do 3 miles. Not very nice if Im honest, but I managed to do another 3 miles without stopping so I felt pretty pleased with myself. (although you can’t really tell in the picture!)
On Saturday morning Cata convinced me to go and swim with her. I was a bit reluctant as I haven’t really been swimming in public pools since my younger days when I trained 7 days a week & competed.
Im so thankful that she dragged my sorry ass with her though because it felt great to be back in the water after more than 12 years! It really helped to energise and revitalise my legs after an intense couple of weeks with a painful left shin and calf and I’m thinking of going 2 days a week starting March.
I had 9 miles scheduled for my long run on Sunday and since Cata had been such a great help the previous weeks in keeping a steady pace, I decided to join her once again as she did a steady 7 miles from her marathon plan, with 2 miles at the end on my own.
The first 2 miles felt pretty shit. The wind was strong and it kept blowing away the clouds, letting the sun shine through.
Usually I love the sunshine, but wearing a black thermal running jacket, I thought I would collapse of heat stroke whilst running around Peckham common.
Once the sun went away I felt much better, and we managed to do a decent 5 miles at a very consistent pace – despite the wind almost blowing us off the road a few times!
The last 2 miles on my own were much harder. I decided to try a gel at 7 miles to see how I would react to it, and of course my stomach rejected it straight away and I thought I would shhhh myself.
Not a nice feeling and I had a little sob when I had around 0.5 miles left.
But I managed to hold myself (thankfully!) and I was surprised how relatively good I felt when I was done.
Fingers crossed this good feeling continues as I add on more miles to my training this week!
MARATHON TRAINING WEEK 5
MON: REST – Done
TUE: Strength training & 3 miles – Done, but I ran 6 miles
WED: 5 miles – Done but I ran 3 miles
THU: Strength training & 3 miles – Done without strength training
FRI: REST – Done
SAT: Swimming – Done
SUN: 10 miles – Done