Global Sport Stories

So here we are. Although having always been a plan of mine, I never really thought I’d be explaining the fact that I am one week into my marathon preparation. With everyday that goes by I am both proud of myself, for actually committing and getting the marathon booked, and annoyed with myself – why am I willingly choosing to run 42 kilometres? But alas, let me talk you through what my first week of training has looked like…

The week, like others, started with 5 a side football. I have no issue with this. As I am sure I have said before, it is a brilliant way of incorporating high intensity work into my training routine, which is just as important as long runs. Partnered with the fact that I stayed on the pitch for about 45 minutes out of 50, I’d say I definitely got my high intensity work done. 

As for the game… we lost. But what a valiant performance we put in nevertheless. No one would feel aggrieved with me for saying that we didn’t have the strongest side playing, and this was reflected in the half time score of 7-1 to the opposition. At this point we could have crumbled, and although going on to subside to a 9-6 defeat, we were left feeling positive at how we didn’t just crumble and actually put in a spirited performance.

My legs were pretty cooked after football, but Tuesday rolled around and I’m led to believe this is what marathon training is all about… training on tired legs. So I got just over 8.5km under my belt in the morning before work. There were no breakneck speeds; you could almost call it a recovery run – just incorporating longer distances.

Wednesday was a rest day. Despite wanting to of course push myself to train as hard as possible, I know the importance of not writing myself off before I’d even begun. Plus, as mentioned in previous blogs, due to the nature of my jobs I was still very much achieving active rest! My body was definitely in need of this though, and this combined with my increased efforts to stretch more, I believe led to a surprising feeling of freshness on Thursday morning.

My run on Thursday had to be in the early evening after work, but I found myself going at quite the pace. Perhaps this is easier to achieve having been up and about throughout most of the day? The decision to go at 4:44/km pace was not particularly a conscious one. However, I did realise I was travelling faster than what I usually do. Feeling I could sustain the pace though, I completed just shy of 9.5km in 44 minutes 48 seconds. This felt incredibly rewarding. Knowing I have the ability to sustain a faster pace, all whilst continuing to put a sustained distance into my legs to add to the weekly miles total, left me feeling extremely positive.

With a long run on the horizon for Sunday, Friday proved to be another rest day (mainly due to my heavy work schedule honestly). This meant to feel more accomplished I wanted to do a shorter run on Saturday. A sort of shakeout run if you will. Parkruns are on Saturday morning, perfect! 

Nope. Newcastle United winning the Carabao Cup put a stop to that, as the Park Moor (where Parkrun is usually held) was acting as the final destination for their open top bus tour.

Instead I had to use my imagination, outrageous I know! At this point I was struggling to come up with different 5k routes near my house in order to keep things fresh. I managed though, you’ll be glad to know. And that was a 5km shakeout run boxed off before a long day at work.

This brings us to Sunday, a day I had set aside to complete a long run. As there were only four Sundays before the marathon (including this one), I figured I had to start increasing my distance. Beforehand, the furthest distance I’d run was a half marathon – 21.2km. The next natural progression I thought… 25km. That was the day’s challenge.

Perhaps through laziness to not plan any other route, I was setting off along the Tyne to Tynemouth again. The path itself is just a little shy of 20km but travelling from my house to the start of the path represented a good portion of the extra 5km I was needing to add on. 

I must say I felt sluggish. I was fine, but my legs were definitely not fresh. Knowing the length of the route that lay ahead of me almost added to my legs’ early onset fatigue. The benefit of this however, is I have been given a kick up the ass to find a new long run route. Despite still taking a few wrong turns, the familiarity of the route now poses psychological challenges to me, as I know exactly what stages of the run I am still yet to complete. A fresh, unknown change of scenery is in order next week in my humble opinion. 

Anyway, somehow I stumbled on and hit the half marathon mark in Tynemouth. This meant I had to loop up and back the coast a little to claim my 25km, which is a personal record of mine. Despite the sense of pride and accomplishment, I did feel sore. I’d compare it to the first time I had run a half marathon – grimacing through the final through k’s. This shouldn’t be a negative aspect though, as the fact I completed 25km in 2 hours 21 minutes, having banked over 18km and a five a side session all prior in the week proves my body is adapting to the training load (I hope).

All in all that was over 43km I had run through the week – which leaves me feeling pretty optimistic, a little sore and very tired. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t winging the training a little, but I know what I have to do and hey, this is all a learning curve right. I am “all in” to this marathon now, so with Gateshead looming large let’s see what next week’s training holds.