Weeks – 10 – 14 Marathon training – The Life Of A Masters Athlete

Firstly I’ll apologise for not keeping up to date with my weekly blog, but sadly life took over so trying to juggle high volume and moving house was very challenging, tiredness definitely kicked in and I had to make sure I recovered correctly.

So the last 5 weeks in my training block , what happened? I ran my biggest volume in the block of 100 miles, so the rest of the block looked like this volume wise , 100, 47 ( moving home week) , 93, 75, 48, 53( including Race)

I won’t go into to much depth of a week by week now cause so much has gone by.

But throughout the training block the one thing that I remember was the weather conditions, especially the high winds, those was just brutal! Long runs @ Marathon Pace or a bit slower where key for me, so throughout the block I ran, 16 miles, 18,19,20,18,16,8 (race recovery) 21,22,22,12 (moving home week) 23,19,15,10. Now a lot of these long runs where split, 3/4 just slower than MP, the last 1/4 @ MP, as the training got closer to race day the runs got quicker, so 3/4 at MP, then last 1/4 quicker than MP, not by much 5-10 secs. Also though out the block there was a mid week long run which I maxed at 18 miles which was at MP. Then 1 session per week which leaves the rest of the week for easy recovery running. I have to say the training went so well, tough not gonna lie about that end of the day it’s marathon training, but for me the key thing is just the consistency day in day out week in week out, if you can put those weeks together and just do you best with the time you have you should see improvements.

I never changed much from last year’s marathon block, volume and thinking about nutrition a bit more, ie pre long run food, pre race food and just getting your body use to what your gonna use on race day, so long runs i practiced my gels on many occasions with different brands, different time intervals just to see what works.

The challenge I had with moving home was I’ve moved to an area where it’s hilly 😆 so going from the flat fens of Heckington to the hilly town of Grantham was a bit of a shock, there are some beautiful running routes around here, but some brutal hills to. I’ll share some pictures from my last few weeks of training before I put together my race blog, Manchester Marathon has been completed and I’m now relaxed and recovering 😊😊😁😁

Thank you’s, just wanted to say some thank you’s, firstly to my girlfriend Anna, she has been amazing, so supportive and caring, she really looked after me on race day, and throughout the training block. Thank you darling couldn’t have done it without you, love you ♥️♥️♥️

Thank you to my coach Gary Warhurst, again putting together a great training plan and keeping me in check and offering so much advice when I needed it, your time and efforts you put into me is appreciated, thank you. And thanks to everybody who has supported me .