Loch Ness Marathon Training week 3

How time flies! That is me completed 3 weeks of my 16 week training programme.

The week started a bit shaky. On Tuesday I had scheduled 1 mile warm up then 1 mile times 4 with 1/4 mile recovery. Before this I have been hitting my target pace and mileage fine. But this one I bit off a bit more than I could chew. For a start I picked a hilly 1 1/4 mile loop, so I knew not to expect the 7 minute miles on the plan. Next even though it was 8pm at night it was extremely hot! I was sweating just with the warm up! Then the the first mile of the repeats I did in 7.26 and pounded way too much on the downhills meaning my legs were already sore and knew i could not maintain that pace. By the second mile I was already destroyed and made it round in 7.58 and decided to call it before I did any damage so i ploded home.

Wednesday was a lot better with a nice easy 7 miler. On Thursday I had a steady 4 miler scheduled but I decided I had unfinished business from earlier in the week so went for the session i meant to do on the Tuesday.... and I nailed it!. Took the first couple of loops easy and did it in 8.10, 8.10, then did the 3rd in 8 minutes dead. Then the fourth in 7.44. So I have learnt a lot this week about speedwork!

Friday was my day off, then Saturday I ran to the Park run and back in Pollock Park. So that was a nice 5 mile loop and in between I helped out with the Park run for the first time after running it the week before. I handed out the numbers at the end and thouroughly enjoyed it! It was a good laugh and all the volunteers are sound. I will definetley be volunteering again as its a great event.

Then on to Sunday for the long run. I did a 9.6 mile loop the week before and had a 10 miler on the schedule for this week. I decided this week to have the 9.6 miler as base then any hill off of the route I would go up it. So I ended up with a 13.5 miler and it felt really good!