Marathon Training Week 14

Sometimes real life gets in the way of updating this blog not to mention fitting in my training runs.

Since the last time I updated this blog I have had a mysterious illness that came and went without warning, got married, been on honeymoon and have had to cope with the effects of jet lag. My training has suffered a bit throughout all of this but I'm still on track (ish) to run the Richmond Park Marathon in two weeks' time, albeit with a slightly adjusted finish time expectancy (more of which later).

Let's start where I left off. The week of my marriage I was hoping to get everything back in order and hit all my training runs. I knew I'd have to jiggle them about, what with the wedding and the honeymoon but still hoped to get them all in. On the Wednesday before the wedding I woke up at 6am to go for an 11 mile steady paced run. Nothing too difficult in that. As I made my way to the toilet for a quick pee before heading downstairs I noticed that something was wrong. Essentially I felt as though I was on the deck of a ship in the high seas. My balance was all wrong and I kept walking into the wall. It was a little bit frightening because there were no warning signs the previous day or night, I hadn't drunk the night before nor had I come into contact with anyone who was ill (at least I didn't think I had). Fortunately I was due to work from home that day so I was able to spend most of it sitting on the sofa trying to make the world stop spinning. By about lunchtime it did but I didn't want to risk going out for the run in case I made it worse. I'm guessing that it was some inner ear infection that cleared itself up. Whatever it was it had gone by the evening and everything was back to normal.

Due to my wedding on the Saturday I had to run my Sunday run on the Friday once again. This time I headed down towards Kingston along the Thames footpath. It's a brilliant route to run winding down past Richmond and Teddington. It was a cold morning as it has been for most of this year so far. Spring had not yet sprung. I headed back through Bushy Park and tried to find a route to Twickenham. This time I was able to make it to the rugby stadium and ran the last five miles down through Brentford and back home to Ealing.

On my actual wedding day I ran an easy four miles in the morning taking a route that led past Pitzhanger Manor where the ceremony would take place about 7 hours later. The wedding itself was amazing, much more fun than I had thought it would be. Everything went to plan, even my bride-to-be turned up which was a bonus!

Obviously on the Sunday I was nursing a raging hangover so wasn't able to run and then on the Monday we were on a plane to New Orleans for our honeymoon. I managed a quick run in the morning as I didn't know what sort of city New Orleans was going to be to run in.

I love running in foreign cities as you get to know areas that you would never otherwise discover. The trouble is in finding decent routes that don't have too much traffic as well as not knowing the safer areas of the city.

My first run in New Orleans was on the Wednesday and did not go well. I woke to a thunderstorm. Still, I got my gear on and headed out onto the streets of the French Quarter where our hotel was. I was supposed to by running intervals of 4 x 1.5 miles but the French Quarter is too cramped and dense with streets so I ran down to the river hoping that there was a decent riverside path. There isn't. By the time I had got there and discovered this I was soaked through to the skin and thoroughly miserable. I decided to put an end to my misery and called it a day. 3 miles done. That was enough.

I decided a major rethink would have to take place. My interval and tempo runs would need to be abandoned but as long as I got some decent distance slow runs then that would keep the fitness levels up. The next day I ran 9 miles having found out where the city park was (we had gone to the art museum in the middle of it the previous day - a wet weather day activity), the day after I ran 6 miles past the New Orleans Superdome (a city bus tour had shown me where it was) and the day after that I ran an easy 5 miles through the Treme area (again, the city bus tour helped me find out where this was). Not too shabby.

The Sunday was my long run. By now I had gained better knowledge of the area so was confident of where I could run. I mapped out a route that essentially followed one of the streetcar lines so all I had to do was keep an eye on the where the overhead lines were and I was fine. I hadn't brought any gels with me (I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take them to the US) so by about 16 miles I was getting a bit short of energy. Fortunately by this time I was back in the city park where there were drinking fountains. Not exactly energy gels but needed all the same. This helped me finish the final four miles back to the hotel where we decided to have a pool day (it was Sunday after all) and spent the whole day sitting by the pool giving my muscles a rest.

From then on it became easier to find places to run. I even managed an interval session. As much as there wasn't a riverside path there was at least a 1km strip that was frequented by many runners. I used this to run a session of 5 x 1 mile. Not the most exciting running going backwards and forwards but still better than nothing. On the final day I was due to run a 6 mile tempo session but the weather turned against us and I thought better of it. All in all I managed to run 8 days out of 10 which is not bad. On my honeymoon! My wife is extremely understanding! I'm a very lucky man.

We arrived back in the UK on the Friday and had to deal with jet lag. I suffer quite badly and this time was no different. Going east to west is easy, it's just a slightly longer day. But west to east (which this is) is a nightmare, it messes the body up totally. It usually takes me about 6 days to get over it. We landed early on Friday morning and struggled to stay awake as long as possible. That night I slept till about 10am the next morning and went out for an easy 5 miles. On the Saturday night I could not get to sleep until 5am. I was supposed to run 22 miles, my longest session in the whole of the training schedule but jet lag put paid to that. The Sunday night I was up until 4am. This time though I had to get up at 7am to go to work. I was pretty much like a zombie for the entire day which worked in my favour because on the Monday night I slept like a baby. On Tuesday I commenced running again. 7 x 800m intervals. I struggled due to my ongoing tiredness but at least I was back in the groove. Things got easier as the week went by and I decided to swap this week's long run (an 18 miler) for the 22 mile run that I had missed. It would be 2 weeks until the marathon but I thought that would be ok.

I'll never find out if it would have been ok because I have come down with a cold. Sore throat, blocked nose, swollen tonsils, the lot. So I have missed my long run for the second week running. Not ideal. My latest plan is to run 18 miles on Tuesday morning (it should have been 12 hill reps) when I am due to work from home so I will be able to recover. This will be my last long run before the marathon in two weeks' time so I really have to get it in.

Because of all the missed training, re-jigged training and general chaos that has gone on in the last month or so I have had to alter my expectations of what I want to achieve in the marathon. I had been training for a 3:20 finish with the hope that because it is a hilly course I could break 3:30. This now is very unlikely. I've adjusted my training schedule to be that of a 3:30 finish with a hope of breaking my previous best which is 3:44:46, which considering the course and the training chaos would still be a great achievement.Failing this I would still like to get in under 4 hours and I think that is definitely achievable.

The moral of the story is don't train for a marathon and get married and go on honeymoon at the same time. One of those things will lose out and it won't be the marriage!

I did think that I wouldn't do another marathon after this one (which will be my third) but due to the slight disappointment I'm feeling about how my training has gone I am thinking of doing an autumn marathon, perhaps Chester again. Hopefully I will be able to follow a schedule to the letter and hit every session. As long as nothing gets in the way. I'm certainly not planning on getting married again!