Week 16 of 20 weeks to Sub 2:20?

M 8.5 miles (6:46mm), 5 miles (7:11mm)

T 18 miles including 4X18mins (3mins) (5:54mm), 6 miles (7:04mm)

W 10 miles (6:31mm), 6 miles (6:51mm)

T 9 miles (6:24mm), 6 miles (6:56mm)

F 7 miles (6:22mm)

S 8 miles including 2 at MP(5:26, 5:22) (6:26mm)

S 28.5 miles including 1st place at Halifax Marathon 2:47:25 (6:21mm)

Total 113.5 miles (6:29mm)

Weight 141 lbs

Body fat 9.7%
Aerobic efficiency 972 beats per mile

So after feeling in the depths of despair last week, I was keen to have a more confidence building week this week. All in all it went really quite well - some decent miles and a couple of good marathon specific sessions.

I had the Halifax marathon penciled in as my long run for Sunday and wanted to be reasonably fresh for it given I wanted to do it at a steady effort and knew it to be a hilly course, so did my marathon session on the Tuesday this week. The session was 4X18 minutes at cMP with three minutes recovery. I had taken the decision to try to ease in to the session a bit more than I typically do hoping that I would end up feeling surprised with the output of pace as it progressed. The first interval was at 5:27 pace, the second at 5:26 and then the third at 5:24. I was pleased with how things were progressing and was confident of hitting target race pace (5:20s) for the last stint but it wasn't to be. All of a sudden I had terrible gut issues and really needed to 'go'. After that the legs just seemed to give up and my mind was taken up with concentrating on not disgracing myself! That ended up as a relative jg of 5:39 pace. On reflections I was still quite happy with the session, it wasn't perfect and the legs were a little mullered, but I think that was largely down to residual tiredness from last week rather than anything too sinister.

The rest of the week was steady running until the marathon on Sunday. I looked back at my training log from last year and realised that I had been running my steady mileage a lot quicker then than now and so took the decision to put a bit more effort in on my easy days. Strangely my legs seemed to thank me for it as they felt a lot fresher throughout the week than they have done recently from general plodding.

I had spotted that the Halifax marathon was on a few weeks ago and thought I could use it as my final big long run before Berlin. Give it was a 'race' I knew it would feel more enjoyable than a typical solo long run - maybe I should just pin a number on before every long run! I had heard the course was particularly challenging and so it turned out in terms of the undulations. According to Strava, not far of 2,800 feet of ascent in total. That's basically over half a mile straight up which is a little bit ridiculous, given I generally try to avoid hills at all costs! Anyway I really enjoyed it as something different and put in a very even effort all the way around finishing in 1st place with a time of 2:47:30ish feeling very comfy apart from a slightly tight left calf. Looking at my Garmin trace it looks as though it was a perfect even split too which shows I judged the effort really well. Mile splits varied from 5:25-7:45 which shows the extent of the hills! I had to stop for a couple of pee breaks too (not in the 7:45 mile strangely - that was just a mountain!) which was a helpful reminder that I really shouldn't drink anything within three hours of the race. The course did spark a bit of interest in my mind of what  I could do if I raced it all out. I suspect it would probably have been 13-15 minutes quicker so maybe I could be relatively good in hilly races? Certainly something to consider in the future and someone has already mentioned the Snowdonia marathon which may end up being a target in the future....

Weight has come down another touch this week and I have lost a bit more body fat apparently. Aerobic efficiency has taken a step back a little again. I suspect the figure is swayed quite a lot because of the Halifax race and the undulations meant my heart was having to work harder for the pace output, given I usually run flat routes. I feel a lot happier about this week than last and am confident that things are really coming together. I am doing a track 10,000m in Stretford next weekend, so that should be fun. I've never done a 10k on the track before so it's a bit of an unknown quantity but hopefully I should be in good shape to at least threaten the road PB of 32:05!