As of today, completed the first four weeks of my bespoke 16-week marathon training block. Some statistics:
- Ran 36 + 39.25 + 42.76 + 30.53 = 148.54 miles
- In 25 hours 19 minutes
- Almost all of these miles were easy, first two weeks there were a few marathon-pace miles, week 4 had a parkrun (that I ran in 21:59, even though the goal time was 23:00).
- Included an hour of cross-training (Zwift) during week 1
- Overall, done 25% time-wise and 21.6% distance-wise
- During the parkrun, had a heart rate measurement that was higher than my previous max HR estimate, the new max HR approximation is 187 (it’s funny how close this becomes to the silly “220 – age” formula)
Some lessons learned:
- Not a new lesson, but a constant reminder not to push easy pace making it moderate or hard, especially during long runs
- I sadly did it during the week 2 long run, and got an IT band niggle; thankfully, it disappeared during week 3
- I started taking electrolyte tablets during particularly sweaty runs, subjectively it feels like it became easier to stay hydrated even during the day
- So far, the hardest part of the marathon training is to wake up consistently at 4:30am to get in eight-mile runs before work
- This was necessary due to hot weather, but hopefully going forward the weather will cool down and I can get back to running during the day, which is much less stressful
- Long runs from point A to point B (as opposed to out and back) are WAY MORE FUN, since they give a sense of adventure (you are actually traveling on foot between places that are 15 miles away from each other)