Stars on 45

London Marathon Training
Week 5, Day 1

And so onto week five, and supposedly an easier week but, I’ll tell you what, tonight’s run was anything but easy.

I decided to move up to the 45-minute group at tonight’s club training session. I had debated whether to do it or stick with the 30-minute group given my efforts over the weekend, but I decided I would never know how I’d cope if I didn’t give it a go.

It started off ok, a reasonably sedate pace, but the speed steadily increased and whilst I wasn’t left behind I did find the going a little challenging, partly because my legs were a tad heavy after Sunday.

I made the mistake the last time of doing the little shuttle sprints up the Frys Road so I elected to sit them out this time.

I felt bad about that because there were only six or seven in our group tonight and I was the only one not to do them …… but last time they totally drained my legs and I really struggled in the second part of the run. I knew the same would happen tonight so I decided to put my sensible head on.

This all sounds very negative but it’s not meant to be. I suspected the group leader was thinking that’d be my mindset because, towards the end, he said to me that I’ll likely go home and beat myself up over the run tonight (hello Stephen if you’re reading!).

Yes, I was towards the back of the group but I wasn’t spat out. I managed, by and large, to keep pace with everyone else and that very definitely wasn’t the case the last time I tried the 45s.

On top of that, looking at the stats, tonight’s run was 39 seconds per mile faster than my previous outing with the 45s and, indeed, at the end we were told that tonight’s run is regularly a 50-minute session so for us to do it in the time we did gives you an indication of how fast we were going at times.

The distance covered tonight meant I’ve done 62 miles for the month, my best ever, and with 15 of them coming this weekend alone I think I deserve a little rest.

That said, I’ll likely go to the C25K session tomorrow night just to keep active but my runs for the rest of the week are just one 20 minute and one 30 minute session in preparation for the London Winter Run 10k on Sunday.

London Marathon Training (62 miles – 15 runs)
Week 1 – 12.2 miles (4 runs; average 3.05 miles per run)
Week 2 – 9.3 miles (2 runs; average 4.65 miles per run)
Week 3 – 17.7 miles (4 runs; average 4.4 miles per run)
Week 4 – 18.8 miles (4 runs; average 4.7 miles per run)
Week 5 – 3.6 miles (1 run; average 3.6 miles per run)