I’ve lost a week! Well, I haven’t really, but I’ve realised that my 15 week marathon training program assumes that race day is at the beginning of week 15 so effectively it is 14 weeks of training, which means that I now have 13 weeks left! If you see what I mean..
Anyway, week 1 of the program has been pretty good for me, particularly taking into account we are all having to get back to “normality” after the Christmas/New Year break.
And, despite my previous concerns
(Bleep!..”slow down”) about the slow “easy” pace, I am getting to appreciate the thinking behind it. What it means is that if I start off a bit too eager and then hit a bad patch or have to climb a hill, I have some time in the bank to slow down, while still keeping to my target average pace for the whole run. It takes the pressure off and makes the run more enjoyable.
That said, the hill session and the tempo runs I found very hard. I really struggled to maintain the required pace on both. I think this might well be lack of core strength, so it looks like I should be supplementing my run program with some exercises, perhaps even weights. Not my favourite.
I’m also quite pleased with myself for sticking (well pretty much) to the other parts of my plan. I must admit that I swiped a couple of sweets from the kids today to feed my sugar craving and I had a glass of wine yesterday to be sociable, but overall I have had a healthy eating week. Next week I will be completely “dry”.
So, end of week one, it’s still early days yet, but so far so good.. How’s your training coming along?
Hilary