A not-so-restful rest week - Marathon Week One

Marathon plans include lighter mileage/rest weeks for a reason. Please use them.

While it’s pretty unusual to have this in week one of a marathon training plan, I wish I’d taken my lighter week more seriously. But there are reasons I didn’t.

Let’s look at the original plan for this week:

• Monday – rest

• Tuesday – easy 45 minutes

• Wednesday – rest

• Thursday – time trial/Lactate Threshold Test (45 mins sustaining as fast a pace as possible)

• Friday – rest

• Saturday – easy 45 minutes

• Sunday – easy 45 minutes

Not a bad start to a marathon training plan, right? But even from Tuesday, this started to go downhill (and not in the good, easy-running kinda way)…

Torrential Tuesday

The forecast for the week wasn’t great. I knew this. But it still didn’t make the reality any easier. An easy run is supposed to be great. You’re simply letting your legs recover at a more manageable pace. But as soon as I stepped out of the door, it absolutely hammered down. For the whole thing. Ordinarily, I would have run at another time or done a shorter, quicker run to get it out of the way. But now I’m on the plan, I was determined to trudge along for the whole thing.

Threshold Thursday

Then it was onto Threshold Thursday. Something I knew would be horrific. While not an official lactate threshold test, the point was to get an idea of my pace zones for the different runs. I deliberately got up 2.5 hours in advance so that I could have breakfast (more on nutrition in the coming weeks) and be settled ahead of the run. I chose the English Garden 1) to avoid constant traffic lights 2) in the hope it would be quieter and 3) to avoid encountering too many humans while in tomato-mode.

I set off. Too fast, of course. And while it wasn’t raining, I effectively had to add hurdles to the session to avoid the numerous lake-like puddles littered en-route. But while I was slowing down with each and every kilometre, I managed to regain some speed in the second lap.

As I got to the end of kilometre eight, two things happened:

• It started hammering down. The soaked-to-the-skin variety.

• Two police horses emerged.

Now common protocol dictates one must slow down for horses. And while this sounds like an excuse (it partly was), I still preferred a hit to my time to a kick from a horse. Eventually, horses navigated, I finally got through the final ten minutes and started the easy jog home. Shower, washing machine, done. And that should have been that.

Into the mountains

But I’m also training for another event in the middle of July. The Zugspitze Ultra Base Trail. 24km, Mittenwald to Garmisch, 600m elevation (lots of hills). So when a friend suggested we test out the route on a run/hike, it was too good to refuse.

After a delayed journey down there, I couldn’t wait to get started. The thing I’m learning about trail running is it’s a completely different game to the road. It’s okay to walk/hike, it’s not about time or speed, and it’s paramount to respect the conditions/environment around you.

Two hours forty minutes later, we made it back, including navigating a G7-enforced detour and severe heat. Long-story short – the course is more forgiving than anticipated, testing the gels went well, and chafing cream is a must…

As you can imagine, I’m ending the week (and this blog) pretty shattered. I leave you with my actual mileage for the week. I’m looking forward to next week – and let’s see how I get on once the real work begins!

• Monday – rest

• Tuesday – easy 45 minutes

• Wednesday – rest

• Thursday – time trial/Lactate Threshold Test (45 mins sustaining as fast a pace as possible)

• Friday – rest

• Saturday – 15km including relaxed parkrun

• Sunday – 23km

Total time/km/miles: 5 hours 42 minutes. 61.2km. 38 miles.