7 week marathon programme: Week 3

Happy Days :-)

Well, both my ankle and me have made it to week 3, and time is really flying by. My ankle is definitely getting stronger and so is the running.

Week 3 was all about upping the game, during the week it was much the same as the previous weeks training but my Sunday run went up to 16 miles.

Monday was a bank holiday, which would have been ideal to get some extra miles in, but I was taking it easy as I had run 12 miles the previous day, so Monday's run was a steady 4.4 miles.

Tuesday was a rest day, followed by a tough 8 miler on Wednesday. 

Again, on this run like the previous week I went over the ranges with friend Brian. The run is an out and back one, a tough 4 miles out with plenty of up's, makes the return a little more relaxing with the downhills.

There is a couple of hills that come one after the other at about mile 2. Last week I couldn't quite manage the 2nd hill and had to walk the last few metres. This week I managed to get up it running all the way, so positive moves forward there.

We tweaked the run which meant more hills this week, which in total gave 900ft of climbing over 8 miles, a great and beneficial run.

With such a short programme the rest days are as important as the running days, so after a tough mid week run I took two days off before the important weekend long run.

This week's long run was fuelled by 500ml of water 

(needed more!) Half a packet of crunched up ready salted

 hula hoops (for salt) and a 9 bar.

Saturday, and the long run increased to 16 miles, the furthest I would run for 6 months and after only 2 weeks back running...it was tough.

So not to over stress myself, I kept the run flat along the canal path. I ran 8 miles to Brookwood, turned round and came back. It all came back to me; the hard first few miles to get warmed up, the next 6 miles feeling I could run and run all day, and then once I got to around the 12 mile mark, tiredness began to settle in and the last few miles my pace slowed up. But I got there, but right now I'm not sure where I'm going to find the 10 more miles within me to complete the marathon. I reckon I could have run another couple of miles then maybe got to 20 miles with some mind games....beyond that??

However I've still got two big long runs planned in the next couple of weeks, so all is not lost yet.