End Of Week 3 Marathon Training

So it's the end of week 3 marathon training and my heads all over the place..

Week 1 I ran 32.53 miles,this total mileage should have been lower if it wasn't for the Sunrise to Sunset race.
Week 2 I ran 24.42 miles every run was done as it should be on the day it should have been with the exception of one run.
Week 3 ...went out the window I ran 23.74 miles which is the total I had to run but due to seeing friends and family and actually having a social life outside of running I had to shift runs around to different days which has thrown my body out of sync on the running front.

Last week I made the mistake of moving my long run of 11 miles from Sunday to Saturday; again to accommodate a social life ( having a social life and marathon training is rather hard unless all your friends and family are runners or you want to go to bed at midnight every night) , on the Sunday I only managed to run 1 mile of the intended 4 due to my hamstring yet again becoming a prominent problem in my running! I wasn't going to do this again as I know for sure that I will never ever skip a long run as this is the base I need for the marathons and ultras entered. The piddly 4 mile interval sessions I can go without but the long runs no way hosey!  With yesterdays tough interval session of 10 mins threshold pace with a 2 minute recovery repeated 3 times my mind had taken over today and I told myself I was too tired to run, my hamstring was tight and I began to feel rather low about my running. Was it wise to continue with my hamstring bad? It clearly hasn't cleared up properly since November when I was having physio and there is no way I am pulling out of London i'll limp to the end if I have to. There was also no chance of me taking months off to resolve the problem so after a quick moaning minnie post on run for fun I had a virtual running buddy Chris who would also be running 12 miles today. It's always better to think there is someone else out there running the same as you and tie up together online when you get back.  I'd got all my gear ready, part of the long runs is also trying out refueling during running. I had my camel bak with some electrolyte drink in it.. cherry I think. I had my new Shadow Pak a very slim waist pack that sits flat against your stomach without bouncing. This I filled with jelly babies BOGOF in tesco..nice!

The run was pretty much robotic same as last weeks long run, when you are running on your own for over two hours with nothing but cars zooming past and a dull grey sky all around it's hard not to switch off and just get the job done. I intended to do the Blackpole, Fernhill heath loop which would be 7 miles then the Tolladine and dreaded Ronkswood hill loop which I estimated to be around 5 miles, perfect. All was going well at marathon pace of 11 min to 11.27 min miles I was running bang on if not a little faster at times my hamstring after 4 miles either wasn't hurting anymore or I just chose to be stubborn and blatantly ignore it. It was cold, it was wet and it was boring, at mile 8 I dropped my only tissue in a puddle...bugger... oh well. I whizzed down Tolladine trying to make up some time as I knew I would slow down for the Ronkswood hill which was covered in dog shite and even some sick on the pavement... you gotta love the rough parts of Worcester. By mile 10.5 I was mulling over my pace as although i'm aiming for a 5 hour marathon in London (or I have Worcester as a backup plan pb) and trying to train myself to run slower to maintain a constant pace there was a little niggle going on in the back of my head.... Here's the deal..

what the inside of my head looked like!

Torremolinos is just over 2 weeks away, it is a half marathon with the first 6 miles flat then the final 7 miles a steady ongoing climb with a very very strict cut off time of two and half hours for road closures. They are more strict over there than here apparently. Two hours and 30 minutes... I should be thinking not a problem. My very first half marathon time was 2 hours 31! since then (missing out the beast and sunrise to sunset) I have always finished around the 2 hours 15 mark so why am I now worrying that I wont make the cut off for Torremolinos. The final mile of todays run was all about numbers.. now I'm rubbish at maths at the best of times with a calculator sat in front of me so why I decided that mile 11 of a 12 mile run was the best time to start working out split times based on todays run which was slower than I will be running in a half marathon anyway I do not know!! There were numbers floating around my head until I made it back to the front door exhausted both physically from the running and mentally from the sudden onset of panic that i'm going to fly all the way to Spain just to get a DNF! Either way the flights booked the hotels paid for and the race is entered so I will do what I do best... keep running!