Back to work (marathon training and blogging)

Neglected running blogs are depressing so sorry to anyone who has been checking in here lately.

Normal service will be resumed over the next few days as I am now underway with my "formal" 18 week schedule in preparation for the Melbourne Marathon on 14 October. The date has unfortunately been pushed back a week from the originally announced 7 October, which has interfered with our travel plans a bit so there is a bit of re-organising to do.

I had an ok run at the HBF Run for a Reason, not fantastic but not a disaster either. Probably went out a bit hard but I had decided that was going to run high 3:30s from the start and try to hold on. Had a bit of rough spot up along the Freeway near Parliament House before we headed down into the tunnel where I had a bit of soreness in my left shin but it didn't last long. Craig passed me in this stretch and opened up a gap which he maintained until the end. Jordan and Ben picked me up in the tunnel and I tried to hang on with them and the small group they had going. I was able to do this which was a benefit for pace and it also helped running into the slight headwind along the Graham Farmer Freeway.

The stretch through Burswood was pretty hard going and I was passed by a couple of guys who must have started back in the main pack but were running 3:20-3:30 pace. Was holding my spot amongst those around me but got passed by Lauren Shelley just before we got to the Causeway. Ben passed me on the Causeway but I managed to get back onto his shoulder as we came off the Causeway near the Police HQ and pushed on as hard as I could to finish, passing one guy in the final 100m on the WACA but Lauren was about 5-6 secs in front of me. Craig was about 30 secs in front of her Finished in 51:35 so although I was a minute slower than last year, I am reasonably happy with this run. Last year I was deep into marathon training and I always seem to run better over shorter distances in the last few weeks before a marathon.

Funnily enough I also felt about a year older than I did last year ...

Well done to Simon E who went sub 50, Craig who ran very strongly and evenly and thanks to Jordan and Ben for the pack running which really helped.

Since then I have put in a couple of solid weeks of 103km and 106km and have picked things up over the last 10 days. My last two Saturday long runs have both been 28km in around 2 hours with some quicker kms thrown in. The first one was with Rob and Craig and was a bit random but generally progressive and the second was solo with kms 1-22 @ 4:24/km and then the 5km from 22-27 @ 3:47/km which is a little bit quicker than I think my goal marathon pace will be but hopefully the adaptations will come.

Today was a shocking day weather wise but I stuck with the plan of doing 16km with 8km tempo but ended up doing 9km tempo instead. Was more tempo effort than tempo pace due to the conditions with a couple of kms being particularly hard going straight into the storm. Last few kms were right on though with the last being 3:43.

21km medium long run tomorrow but I'll be running somewhere new as I think the riverside is to be avoided. I'll post up a bit about the plan I have developed in the next few days.