Training Log Archive: Badger

Richmond Park (2 laps). Felt pretty tough after a hard week and quite a strong wind.

Hampton Court Park/Thames path/Bushy Park.

10 km easy, 21.1 km at Marathon Pace, 4.4 km warm down (for total 22 miles). A disappointing session. It soon became clear that I couldn't hold 4:00/km today - strong winds (W-E) made it so hard every time in that direction and tired me out for the rest of it, and on the back of a big week I just didn't have the energy.

At least I carried on as best I could - it felt hard quite early into the MP section, especially when running into the wind, and very tempting to call the session a write-off - so I was pleased to just carry on at whatever pace I could hold, generally alternating between running fairly strongly with the wind behind me and feeling like I was barely moving when running into wind.

I ended up finishing the half marathon section in 87:22, so under 2:55 marathon pace and less than a minute off PB pace, but some way off 2:50 pace. It's got me thinking again though that 2:50 is too ambitious a marathon target - despite the heavy recent training load and the wind I had hoped to be able to run a half marathon at target MP with only 5 weeks out in what should have been pretty much the most important training session in the build up. So I'm definitely veering towards a 2:52 aim - or at least a 1:26 first half and then see how it's going...

Battersea Park. Intervals (6 x 1 km, off 2:30 recovery) - splits 3:31, 3:30, 3:43, 3:31, 3:47, 3:32 (average 3:36).
Slight disaster, with stomach issues meaning I had to pop into the bushes during the 2:30 recovery after both the 2nd and 4th intervals (!), which led to the 3rd & 5th ones feeling really tough, especially as these were into a fairly strong headwind (although I'd pushed through this on the first one) - but somehow did the 4th & 6th ones pretty well, on target pace, so shouldn't be too disappointed really.

Bushy Park

Home from work. Kept it fairly easy, 2 days post-race - legs still feeling tired but plodded along ok to get the miles in.

Hyde Park