Marathon Diary Week 2

Four very different athletes take on a marathon this Autumn all with completely different goals under the guidance of Coach Tune. Each week we will provide you with an athlete summary of their training week and their personal thoughts on how the week went and compare this is to Coach Tune’s account of their week. Both sides of the story are anonymous.

Athlete diaries

Keri’s Personal Account of her week:

Monday - AM 7 miles in 57 mins

The hilly theme continued, heart rate much lower on this route than any time previously ran - good sign!

PM - Rest

Missed the PM run as felt tired from a day at the water park & in the sun.

Tuesday - AM 7 miles in 59 mins

Feel much better after a nearly 10 hour sleep!

PM 4 miles in 32 mins followed by 6 x 30secs strides

Really easy day - average 20 beats below recovery for both runs - seeing how low I can keep it up some of the hills has become a game.

Wednesday - AM 50 mins Marathon HR Run

Super pleased with this 6.31, HR 4 beats below marathon heart rate, given the hills here.

PM 4 miles in 32 mins

Last run in France 🇫🇷 - feel like it’s been a great block of training 😊 using tomorrows travel day as a rest day.

Thursday - Rest day

Full day of travelling 💤

Friday - AM 8.2 miles in 65 mins

Feels easier on the legs back running flatter routes.

Saturday - AM 15 x 3 mins off 60 mins followed by some hill reps

Really chuffed, paces decent and felt comfortable & successfully met the remit Dave set me for the session.

PM 4.2 miles in 33 mins

Nice and easy shakeout of the legs prior to tomorrows long run.

Sunday - AM 21.7 miles in 2hours33

Really focused on fuelling and increasing my carb intake, worked really well. Incl 10k at just below marathon HR, and pleasantly surprised at pace.

“I feel like it’s been a good week of training, maintaining the volume and gradually introduced a little more effort. Signs of fitness creeping in, with both sessions going really well and long run feeling super comfortable” 

Jenny's personal account of her week:

 This week was a challenge as I was back at work and had a number of family commitments too. Clearly I had no intention of replicating the volume of when on holiday but I still had 70+ miles planned for the week. When marathon training and working full time, letting just one day slip of focusing on sleep, hydration, nutrition and managing stressors can derail training pretty quickly, so I had to really work hard not to let things slip. I struggle to hydrate at work and can sometimes go three hours without a drink 😱, so one of my targets for this week was to not let that happen. Later in the week I had a night out for my sister's birthday, my other sister and nephew were travelling up for the weekend from London and my brother and family were travelling back up to the Isle Of Arran via Tickhill. This meant three evening family gatherings, making a cake (another challenge for me) and my biggest challenge for the week - trying to test the limit of my 14 year old nephews' unbelievable retention of country capital cities. Despite this I managed to get to bed at my usual time of 9.30pm but I missed one strength session and the house is more of a sh*tho*e than usual - something had to give.

Despite all of the above I managed to see three key indicators that my training was going well this week; 1) my mid week marathon heart rate pace session was 12 seconds per mile quicker than two weeks ago and longer 2) I ran a 5 mile race with strict instructions to run at a heart rate just below my lactate turn point and not only ran a time faster than expected my lactate immediately after was only 2.9mmoles 3) An easy long run on Sunday of 20 miles at a controlled heart rate of  <15 beats below marathon pace went really well on a rolling course to replicate that of York. I ran the same pace as my previous 2 runs that had incorporated the final 4-6 miles at marathon heart rate pace. I also feel that I may slightly overcooked things this week and should have done the long run much slower.

MON  Rest day, this means I have 48 hrs rest in total after a big weekend. Strength session

TUES 7.75m @06:59 min/mile. HR ave 156. Total 10.5m

WED  Group session 2x1m, 4x800, 6x400 at 10k effort with drop down recovery. Total 10.5m. This was a slog as it was pissing it down, glad we had a group tonight

THURS 10.2m off road @07:57 HR ave 136. Great scenery off road in Clumber but that was a slog today. Mini S&C

FRI 4m @07:42min/mile then 6 x strides to finish, felt much better today. Live class PM 60mins

SAT AM 6.48m @07:47 (partially with Blizard run group), PM Bassingham 5m road race 29:51 @05:59min/mile HR ave 172. Total 15.5m. Delighted with that.

SUN 20m @07:23 HR ave 139. Mini S&C

Weekly Totals 71.5 miles. 1 x long run, 2 x session, 1 x strides, 30 mins yoga, 150 mins of S&C, 1 x cake making, house cleaning - zero!

Matt's personal account of his week:

Continued difficult week in the personal life.

Took the time to prioritise myself and my own mental health by trying to get out the house, move around and walk the dog. Looked after the little things because a happy runner is a good runner!

Didn’t plan my training out so as to not put any pressure on my self with expectations to what needed doing and just took it one day at a time.

Managed one 30min run on the last day of the week which was a good sign of a turning point. Like Dave says, make running the solution, not the problem.

Lee's personal account of his week:

105 miles completed last week, biggest weekly mileage since Portugal warm weather training. After Wednesday’s session was a wash out due to the weather focus switched to hitting a decent MP run the next day. 50 mins @5.21 right at the bottom of threshold filled me with confidence that my body is adapting well and I’m getting fit very quickly. I’ve introduced a 30min top end of recovery run on a Monday to use as another marker to track my progress. This weeks effort came out @5.34. Sunday long run was a 20 miler at a comfortable pace to practise fuelling. This is something I need to keep practising the closer I get to marathon day. All in all a fantastic weeks training. The plan is to have another high volume week before having an easier week.

Now the view from Coach Tune on each athlete compared to what the athlete sees!

First up is Keri Pearson who is aiming for a new pb in the Frankfurt marathon late October. 

"Another solid week of volume training where I was not too bothered about her quality session as the hills in France where she was on holiday are brutal , the focus was more on nailing her long run and it being a positive experience which she did perfectly. A couple of easier days are now required after a long trip home".

Next is Jenny Blizard who is doing the Yorkshire marathon and her first marathon for over 10 years!

"I gave Jen 3 clear sessions to try and nail this week which were a marathon paced run, a race where we just used as training but practiced holding back and then a long run. All 3 were completed very well and the "race" produced but a pace and lactate reading which meant we are actually in front of where I wanted her to be at this stage. The long run on Sunday was all about working hard of the fueling taking on drinks and gels regularly at the points we will come marathon day and although this was executed perfectly I felt the long run was run too hard after the week she had just completed. Not over doing things is just as important while in marathon mode is as training hard"

Matt is last up and his target race is Berlin in September

"Just getting out the door and getting regular exercise is the only focus I gave Matt this week and he has managed to do this and seems much more positive which is a great sign. With the amount of marathons and endurance base Matt has I have no issues that completing Berlin will be a problem."

Final athlete is Lee Milburn who is also doing the Yorkshire marathon in October

"Great week of training from Lee and we set our first proper marathon paced effort this week and both were surprised at the pace this came out at when the only focus while running was our heart rate. History of Lee's training shows he gets fit very quickly and this week I drafted out the direction of a few key race and training target over the next few weeks leading into race day to help create some direction of where the training is going. My only grip this week with Lee is that on double days he is doing his runs too fast! Not often I say that"

All in all another great week of training from everyone and the focus for everyone in marathon mode is to be consistently good rather than occasionally awesome!

Hope you enjoyed the read.