If it was easy, everyone would do it.
It’s strange sitting here typing up this blog post about how my
training has been since January 2015. The main reason is my hard training
finished two Sundays ago (29th March 2015), so I have had a chance
to think about how my training regime has affected me and what my thoughts are
after calming down from the constant varying workouts and mileage. So you could
say it is more of a training memoir rather than a diary entry; whatever you
call it, it is certainly retrospective. By its nature looking back on something
means that you can recollect what happened, but may not feel what it was like
as intensely or at all. For me this is certainly another cause for feeling
slightly dislocated from writing about training, as I feel pretty much rested
and am waiting to run my marathon. So in some ways it is hard to conjure up the
initial feelings of surviving such a long and specific training programme.
Though my thoughts and emotions are distanced from completing my
training, I can definitely tell you even after resting that it was a lot, lot
harder than I expected. I say this to you without any guilt, but there were
days when I really didn’t want to run, let alone do any speed work or distance
running. If I had to pin down one part of training that I began to dread as the
weeks progressed through my plan; it would definitely be the tempo running
session. This is where you run at your 10 mile race pace for a certain amount
of time. I got very worried about making sure I did this correctly, so I ended
up running on the treadmill so as to ensure I kept the correct pace. Not only
was this hard, but I also found it immensely boring and led to me using music
to get me through the session for the first time in my running career. However
by the end of the training I had definitely got the hang of tempo running and
in a funny kind of way came to love it. There were also days were I didn’t feel
like I had given my all to training, such as when I hadn’t eaten enough
beforehand or hadn’t rested properly. For instance, on my last long training
run- around 21 miles- my blood sugar levels completely plummeted and I found it
hard to put one foot in front of the other. This was not the way I would have
liked to finish my last long distance training run, but I stuck with it, did
not stop and sometimes that’s all you can ask for. So in a lot of ways my
training has not just been to prepare me to beat the three hour mark at
Brighton, but has also been a great (if sometimes steep) learning curve about
running.
I think the new knowledge I have gained from the intensive training I
have been doing over the last few months is something that I am really proud
about. It may sound clichéd, but I think running is about being on a journey.
When I first set out on the goal of breaking the three hour mark for the
marathon I thought that was the sole reason for doing the training, but with
all I have learnt I have come to realise that there are so many other ways that
the training has benefitted me. I am looking forward to running Brighton but am
being patient about it as well, thinking about the races after Brighton and
being excited about how I can develop further. Whilst going through my training
plan, two things constantly kept coming and going through my head. That I need
to have a healthy respect for breaking the three hour mark; in that however
much training I do, there will be a lot of external factors- e.g. how I feel on
the day, the weather, etc.- that could determine my finishing time and
realising that I may need to adjust to that. The other is the awareness that I
have given up a lot of time to dedicate towards getting a particular marathon
time. In my particular case this had other knock on effects; from January 2015
up until the marathon I stopped drinking (you then begin to realise how much of
your social life revolves around going out and consuming alcohol with friends).
Semi-consciously you begin to plan your life around training runs, or at the
very least it starts to force you to balance your life with your running
commitments. This means you become something of a running hermit and it is good
to try and plan social gatherings and other activities post-marathon, to catch
up with loved ones and take your mind off running for a bit (if only a few
weeks). Even now, as I taper, I am looking forward to the mental break of
enjoying my running achievement at Brighton and just resting from running for a
bit.
I would not label anything as a mistake during my training, but I
definitely learnt that I needed more sleep during the intensive parts of my
training. Fatigue was definitely something I had to fight about three quarters
of the way through my plan; as mentioned above, this was not just mental but
also physical fatigue. Next time I
embark on a challenging training plan (like the one I have just done), I will
factor in time off for getting ill- in my case man-flu- over the winter period
and therefore taking some time off from training. The best advice I have been
given for when this happens and after you have recovered: is stick with the
schedule of the plan and reduce the volume of work you do until you feel
completely back to normal. Though if someone asked me what is one thing you
would change about your training plan leading up to Brighton? The answer would
be I would have planned my 20 mile races earlier (the latest being run on
either the 8th or 15th March) and had two half-marathons
either side of these. This would have given me a better idea of how I would do
at the Brighton Marathon. Lastly the thing that I have learnt that is easier
said than done, is not to compare myself to how other people are training but
to just focus on the goal in hand. I said that training for a goal is like
being on a journey and along the way you will meet people who will want to
share what they think is best for you. Sometimes this can be good for you, but
other times I would advise to just leave the negative people and naysayers
alone. The most important thing you can change is yourself, not anybody else or
what they think of you.
With my training complete I have now got one thing left to do and that
is set descending time goals of importance for Brighton. That way if things go
terribly wrong at Brighton then I will still have something good to go for. I
have determined these goals in relation to my previous marathon personal best
of 3hrs and 19 minutes. A) = a fantastic marathon time, B) = a very good
marathon time, C) = a good marathon time, D) = a time I am okay with and E) =
is a time where things have gone badly wrong and I am just aiming to get round
the course in a time that beats my previous marathon:-
B) 03:02:00
C) 03:04:00
D) 03:09:00
E) 03:14:00.
It is going to be interesting to see how things turn out at Brighton.
It is only coming up to year since I did my first marathon and I look back at
how far I have come with my running. The main thing I can be is curious about
what I am experiencing right now and what I can learn to improve my next
marathon attempt. It may just be something unique to running, I could almost
call it an addiction, but I always feel that I have that little bit more to
give or test myself with. Most of all it is to put what I have learnt from this
training programme into use for my next marathon, half-marathon, 10k or 5k
runs. I’ll freely admit that I do not know everything there is about marathon
training, but within my narrow vision of knowledge, I feel safe that I left
everything out in the field…well until the next race calls.
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