What a difference a few weeks make. It felt like I was making no progress, struggling on with the programme despite ongoing soreness and generally feeling a bit down about it all. However following on from last week's reduced mileage and confidence-boosting long workout, I really attacked this week knowing that I would then be going into my taper, and was rewarded for my efforts. Here's how week 10 of my Valencia Marathon training went.
Monday
Felt pretty fresh from Sunday's long run/workout, this was a fun 6 mile loop with surges every mile.
Strength workout in the afternoon.
Tuesday
400 x 10, averaging around 1:22. Felt great. 6 miles in total.
Wednesday
1000 x 6, averaged 3:46. I must confess to being naughty here and wearing my dust-gathering Nike Alphaflys. I find them uncomfortable on my feet but there's no doubt that they are fantastic to run in for a limited period. I thought that with a busy midweek programme and a big long workout at the weekend, I would do what I could to save my legs and they do an excellent job at that. On occasion I think it's fine to train in these but I am generally of the opinion that, for all their wonder, you shouldn't train in carbon plate shoes very often.
Doubled in the evening with an easy 4 mile run, making it 12 miles for the day
Thursday
A repeat of yesterday's session, same average of 3:46. I felt really good running at this pace.
A strength session in the afternoon, followed by a short 4 mile run with 200 x 10, averaging 39 seconds.
Another 12 mile day.
Friday
First of two easy days in preparation for Sunday. 4 miles easy with surges.
Saturday
An easy parkrun with the buggy and some additional warm up/down, 5 miles total.
Sunday
This was the big one, 4 x 5k at marathon pace, with an easy mile in between each rep. I'd never done 4x before, but having done 3x the previous week and felt strong, I was confident going into this. Overall it went well, at no point did I feel like I was struggling, though I was a little bit off my target pace. The 5k segments were run at an average of 6.17, 6.18, 6.17 and 6.11. The strong finish on the last one gave me a lot of confidence. Some GPS issues that always occur in Battersea Park threw me and resulted in my pace being less consistent than I would like, but despite this I remained on top of the session. My third consecutive week of getting a 20 mile workout in the bank, this was a great session and big week to complete and go into the taper.
Week summary
65 miles
5 sessions including one long workout
39600m(!) run at marathon pace or faster
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