Marathon training - week 12 and 1987 World Champs Marathon

103km this week.  Main workouts were an interval session on Thursday and then a good long run in the hills with Sugar early on Saturday morning.  The first couple of days of the week were very easy making sure that I recovered fully from the previous Sunday's 32km race.

On Thursday, I Joined in with the BT RunClub interval session.

500m (approx) to Simon’s house then
3.6km warm-up before
6 × 1km

We were a bit slower when we were running into the wind. I had no expectations for this session as it was my first for a long time and would have been happy if I had run 3:30 average so pleased and a bit suprised how well this went.

Felt very strong and controlled – only got hard from about a third of the way into the 5th rep which was when I was wishing we were only doing 5. Luckily the last rep was with the wind

Recoveries were decent though – 2 min walk recovery after each rep.

3’19
3’17
3’21
3’17
3’23
3’17
ave: 3’19

3km warm-down

A good start to VO2max work.

On Saturday, we started in the dark. Howling easterly made this steady/hard work over the first half – then Brooking Road which I always find a struggle, not helped today by having to stop at the highway to let cars go past.


We set a good pace on the way out and then apparently went 3.55/km for the last 5.8km which was downhill and with the wind behind us. All up 26.65km in 1:54 (4:16/km).


Good fun though and as always excellent conversation. We were all done and refuelled by 8.30am. Got home to find two beautifully behaved children so couldn’t be happier.

Mileage will be up a bit this week and I will most likely do pretty specific marathon pace long run next weekend.

Some new old marathon videos have been loaded onto YouTube recently. Here is part 1 of the 1987 World Champs Marathon (3 parts in all so less than 45mins all up but covers the whole race). Great course for watching on TV, taking in all the great sights of Rome. Less enjoyable are the "expert" comments of Ron Clarke. It's no surprise his stint as a commentator was short lived based on this.

You can also find the 1988 Olympics and 1986 Commonwealth Games marathons on You Tube now.