With 1/3 of my challenge now behind me, i'm gearing up to take on the following few months of hard work for marathons 5-8 which may be slightly more difficult due to the increase in temperature (or at least the expected increase, which, judging by the weather might be being slightly optimistic!) and the external stress of my exams at the beginning of june.
I have decided to finally start listening to people in respect of my training and have begun to take it slightly easier and go with the flow. I am still running 4-5 times per week, but rather than stick to a schedule designed to better my overall times based on rigid training schedules, I am playing it by ear and seeing how I feel on the day, after all, thats good enough for the kenyan's, so who am I to argue!
Tuesday and Thursday remain club nights with WRC and so the pace is a comfortable 8-9mins/mile for anywhere between 6-10 miles depending on who is running. WRC comprises a great group of people and the atmosphere is second to none. The good thing about these runs is that, no matter how groggy i've been feeling during the day, I know that i'll peck up the moment I lace up with these guys and head out. It's also good to see how far along they have come and i'm looking forward to the first DRRL or WRC club championship event I get to run with them this season.
Wednesday night is a new addition, I have started to run with the kind people at Poole Runners (www.poolerunners.com) and they usually run anywhere between 6 and 10 miles at various paces. The total number of people that were there this wednesday was around 30 or so and people form smaller groups depending on what pace they are doing. I had the pleasure of joining a group including my colleague, Chris Cartwright, and his dad, Dave Cartwright (recently featuring in the London Marathon as the first man home in his age catagory at the London Marathon, you'll have seen him finishing just behind Nell McAndrew). Wednesday nights will feature as either MP runs (7.30mins-8mins/mile) or, if I feel up to it, a chance to push myself a little further.
I am trying to get back into the habit of running the local Parkrun on a saturday (www.parkrun.org.uk/poole) which will serve as my speed work. This weekend was a good return all things considered, I clocked in a time of approximately 19mins 30secs for the 5km, although perhaps it was the 3 beers last night, but my throat started to hurt after 3km or so and I had to stop and use my inhaler on 3 occassions. It was notably cold this morning (around 6 degrees on the way there), so perhaps that might have had an impact. All in all, a very good start to the weekend and a nice return to the Parkrun community (which has grown massively since the last time I was there, which is a pleasing sight. Its good to see that more and more people are coming to running and willing to get involved in the local community).
Sunday will remain as a long run day. I've been pretty lax about doing long runs since January and unfortunately I think it is my major downfall in the marathons so far. Ill be hoping to get out for around 2-3 hours on each occassion and am planning to do 13-16 miles tomorrow as the last run before Orpington next week.
Im feeling pretty confident about marathon #5. I am going to try a slightly different tact and wear my heart rate monitor to get an idea what my heart is doing throughout the various stages of the run. Hopefully this will give me some further input as to why things go wrong when they do. So far I have found that if my heart rate stays too high for too long (170bpm+) my asthma will kick up a fuss and I will find it hard to breathe, so that at least is some progress.
Nothing much really to report other than that. Life is good at the moment, and luckily I am free from any major injuries at the moment. My left ankle/foot is still a bit sore from London, but it only twinges occassionally and i've learnt to ignore it for the most part.
Hope everyone is having a great bank holiday weekend :)
