Sunday’s 11 mile run marked the halfway point of my marathon training. It’s safe to say I certainly feel on track and confidence continues as the serious work begins. Week 9 was an easier week, after two higher mileage efforts, and I feel fresh and ready to dive in to some longer Sunday runs over the next couple of weeks. This week also saw the end of two types of workout I’ve been doing on a regular basis – hill repeats and anaerobic intervals – and have now been replaced by ‘Cruise Intervals’, whereby I’m to run 5-6 minute intervals at 10k pace with short recovery in between, and ‘Short Intervals’ run on a flat surface at sprinting speed. I’ve seen huge benefits from consistently running hill repeats and anaerobic intervals and will certainly miss them, but I’m looking forward to the change. I’ve been consciously adding more elevation into my training lately too and I’m feeling much stronger for it. I’ve entered a hilly trail 10k to celebrate turning 32 on Sept 15th in Wendover Woods which falls on a scheduled 18 mile run so it’s something I need to consider in order to get the miles in that week. Perhaps a split day’s running if I don’t kill the legs in the morning’s race. Anyway – Week 9…
I rested on Monday after 16 strong miles the day before. After a recovery Tuesday, I gave the first round of cruise intervals a go the next day. I wasn’t feeling too rosy (headache mostly) so found it a tough one, but I kept the pace reasonably similar for each and was satisfied with how it went.
More recovery mile on Thursday followed into the final hill repeats workout on Friday. I’ve usually been leaving these until the sun has gone down to avoid the sun but was forced to head out earlier due to family BBQ plans in the evening. It was certainly a hard one with little shade available, but with only 8 reps, it was manageable enough.
On Saturday, I once again travelled to the RAF Museum in Hendon to take part in the Spitfire 10k. This race is a special one to me; it’s the first 10k I ran after recovering from my broken leg back in 2015 and I make an effort to enter every year, and have done ever since. It was also the second year that the organisers had set up a ‘Family Run’ before the main race, so I ran with my step-daughter Ella for the 1k before heading out on my own for the main race. I should have been running this at Recovery pace but the occasion got the better of me and I ended up running a lot faster than I should have. Not a PB attempt by any stretch, but definitely not near recovery either. Ho hum.
11 trail miles with Matt finished off the week on Sunday. I’ve been exploring Whippendell Woods of late with the dog and on some of my recovery runs which has been a lot of fun. Matt knows the surrounding area a little better than I do, so it was cool to join up and find a few new routes.
Here’s to the final 63 days!
Cheers
JM
Here are the numbers:
Day 57 – Rest
Day 58 – 4.08 miles, 8:56/mile, 42:56 mins Recovery
Day 59 – 5.21 miles, 7:52/mile, 41 minutes Cruise Intervals
Day 60 – 4.61 miles, 8:22/mile, 38:32 mins Recovery
Day 61 – 4.87 miles, 8:39/mile, 42:11 mins Hill Repeats
Day 62 – 6.15 miles, 7:02/mile, 43:16 mins Spitfire 10k; 0.58 miles, 10:25/mile, 6:08 minutes Warm up 1k Family Run with Ella.
Day 63 – 11.14 miles, 8:55/mile, 99 mins Long Run
Total: 42.9 miles
Moody Running 
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