The past week was a short working week with the Easter long weekend. It was also a recovery week after Run for the Kids so my normal training routine was changed up abit.
At Monday night's session I was still pretty sore from the race the day before. Lower back and hamstrings were pretty tight so I decided it was best not to attempt a recovery run, but walk instead to get my legs moving after sitting all day at work. I like to think I'm pretty in tune with my body these days, can listen to it and know when to pull back a bit. With 11 weeks to go, I'm also being pretty cautious - I want to make it to that start line!
I usually alternate my running days with FIRE/weight days but my three FIRE sessions were packed into three days earlier in the week because of the short week, with most of my running later in the week.
Friday morning was Good Friday, so running crew session was scheduled to be something a bit different. We headed to the property of one of our crew member's in Kangaroo Ground. He's on 33 acres with the most epic driveway I've ever seen! From the house to the front gate, it was about a 600m steady hill climb. I'm not a hill fan at the best of times but have a few training races coming up with hilly courses so was keen to take it on.
The session was 25 mins - as many reps of that hill as you could do. Well, I managed 2 reps before my calves started to seize and cramp up while on the third incline.
I've had issues with painful calves since my second half marathon training, they fatigue easily and pull up sore and tight - it's been nothing major that's ever stopped me running, it's just annoying and can slow my pace down when it's really bad.
I do my best to minimise it as much as possible, I wear compression socks EVERY time I run, sleep in them the night after a run (I know the jury is still out on whether compression garments actually work, but they work for me so that's all I care about!), stretch, take magnesium supplements, regular epsom salt baths and have recently been having regular dry needling. The dry needling in addition to everything else has been amazing, I was convinced they had been improving over the last couple of weeks too.
I think Friday's epic hill reps was such a steeper, longer incline than what my calves are used to, so after the initial two reps, I scaled it back and finished the off with hill sprints on a shorter section of the driveway. They held up over the shorter incline and I was able to finish off the session that way.
Even after stretching and an epsom salt bath later that day, I pulled up with the worst DOM's I've ever felt lower calves and was hobbling around in pain while walking for 3 days! So the calves are still a work in progress, especially when it comes to hills.
I definitely wasn't confident I'd be able to run on Saturday when I was struggling to even walk but went along anyway. Surprisingly, once I started to run, the pain wasn't affecting me at all. I did an easy 60 min long run on the trails around Lysterfield Lake with the running crew and rested on Sunday.
Saturday I also went down to Active Feet in Heathmont to get fitted for new runners for race day...EXCITING! It's always fun getting fitted for shoes, our friend and fellow running buddy Steve is the manager so he always looks after us and we get to test out a few pairs of shoes.
I'm currently in Mizuno Wave Inspire 9's which have been good to me. Mizuno changed them recently so Steve suggested a shoe with a slightly higher heel drop might help with my calf issues. So I tested 5 or so pairs and ended up settling on Asics GT-2000. I've never run in Asics before but they felt great so I'm looking forward to slowly transitioning over to them.
So this week marks the start of a new 12 week journey....towards my biggest goal to date.
I made a (masochistic and crazy?!) decision late last year that after running two half marathons, I felt like I was ready to take the next step......and run the 42.2km's that is the marathon!
I'm proud of and a little bit overwhelmed about the decision but looking forward to giving it everything I've got! If you'd told me I'd even be considering this 2 years ago, I'd tell you you're nuts!
My intention is to 'tick' this off the bucket list, do it once and only once so I want to run it in a decent (and achievable) time, so the goal is to complete the marathon in under four hours.
And so the location and date was decided, heading back to Gold Coast Marathon Festival on July 6 this year.
And so here I am, 12 weeks out from the big day, feeling pretty confident at this stage.
This confidence is only a new thing, 6 weeks ago I worked with Mel to sort about my plan and even though I knew what was in store for me, seeing it there in black and white on paper scared the shit out of me! I was questioning whether I really wanted to do it, was it worth it? It just seemed like so much sacrifice and effort and it was tempting to settle for a smaller goal....or no goal at all! I'm thinking (and hoping!) denial is normal at the start of any goal this big... and as they say, if your dream doesn't scare you, it's not big enough! I had to realise that it's something I truly WANT to achieve and my ultimate reason pushing me is I want to achieve this before I start a family.
Apart from training with our running crew for interval and speed work, I'd always done all my long runs alone. I've never really minded it but when I'm now faced with long runs up to 3 hours, I'm excited to say I have a training partner now!
I've been running with Lisa in our running crew for a couple of years now, she ran 4.04 for her first marathon at Melbourne Marathon last year and is aiming for under four hours at Gold Coast also. We run at a very similar pace and have planned to do most of our long runs together. I can't tell you how much it makes the thought of slogging out the 2 hour+ runs early on a Saturday morning in the middle of Winter that much easier!
So I officially started training 5 weeks ago, building up to 18km's 2 weeks ago, followed by an unintentional rest week due to a stomach virus and 15km's at Run for the Kids this past weekend. Run for the Kids is my favourite fun run of them all and I kinda feel like I'm a real runner now that I've done the same race 3 years in a row, not just a fad anymore! I was really happy with my result, I finished in 1 hour 16 - 3 mins faster than last year and a total 10 mins of my first attempt in 2012.
So apart from work and some sort of social life, each week will be pretty full on. I'm lucky to have a great support team (especially my hubby who is already helping out alot at home) Each week kinda looks like this: long interval/hills session and a speed work session with our running crew, an easy 30-45 min steady run on my own and a long run once a week, building up to 32km's. Along with 2-3 FIRE (weight) sessions with Mel a week, daily stretching, regular massages and maintaining 95% compliance with my nutrition.
I think about it as only being 3 months out of my life and I know the result with be so worth it!
I will be blogging as much as possible over the next 12 weeks so here goes nothing...hope you'll join me on the journey to the start line!
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