My plan was to throw 3 reps of over-under miles (6 miles total) into my usual medium-long run on Wednesday.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get down that fast, that early in the morning without fuelling. As it turned out, I could get down to that pace, though it wasn’t too familiar. I didn’t have a good sense of what the pace should be to be honest and relied a lot on my watch.
After the second “under” (the 3rd mile) my stomach felt a bit off, so I aborted the remainder of the hard effort.
Not a total failure though. The efforts felt good, even at that time of day. Will try again next week.
The past few long runs have been troubled by pre-run nutrition errors. This week I took day-before eating seriously, avoided treats, and felt better.
The first gel still went down heavy, but all good besides.
I signed up for a half marathon to help me get the marathon effort done in company. I topped that up with runs to and from the race to make 19 miles for the day.
The race was in Finsbury Park, which I’ve often passed and never explored. My lack of research was my downfall. The course had a killer hill, which over 10 laps sapped everything from my legs.
I wanted to pull out some faster running towards the end but it never materialised because I didn’t have any pop left at all.
10 laps is too many laps, and this was a miserable race to be honest. It’s one of the most mentally challenging races I’ve run.
Looping back to the goal, my average pace of 6:47 felt much harder than marathon effort. It’s not the pure race pace run I’d have liked, but a solid workout nevertheless.
As mentioned, I managed to get 2 gels down. The first one I took right off the line of the race (I’d already run 4 miles). That went down heavily, and I couldn’t countenance another gel until an hour had gone by. That went down a little easier, aided by water.
These gels are not settling particularly well. It’s too late to change them and I’m not sure it’s the brand. I’ll practice more agressively with them over the next few weeks. On race day, I think I’ll need to be patient, listen to my body, and not panic.
This week was good. Not great, but good, and that’s probably good enough. Decent mileage, and some higher intensity.
If I can hold myself in one piece, I think I can run this race, and all being well have a good day.
Depending on how things go in the next couple of weeks, and through the taper, maybe I can even run a good time. But that is honestly secondary.
To keeping healthy, and keeping on! 4 weeks to go.