After the weekend racing I certainly felt every year of my fifty on this planet. Monday and Tuesday were spent trying very hard to keep up with my training buddies and I was dropped on a few occasions even on our ‘easy to Matilda Bay and back‘ lunchtime 10k. The race itself was brutal and I needed the full 48 hours after a 10k to recover. Things improved Wednesday and come Thursday I was ready for another 14k progressive with the lads with the obligatory  post run muffin and coffee at Yelo. Surprisingly the 14k progressive went better than planned and I managed to pull a PB out of the hat which was a pleasant surprise, albeit I worked for it. Of course with Strava I was able to investigate my previous runs and even print out the history of the run.  In the image below you can see the gradual increase in average pace, bar one (9th February) where we decided to make a big effort to run a perfect progressive and this start slower to give us some leeway at the pointy end of the session. (I actually missed a perfect progressive by a few seconds on one of the last kilometres if I remember correctly? Still to hit a perfect 14k progressive.)

These sorts of graphics give you the little push you can sometimes need as you start another week of training. Marathon training is hard work and also hard work on a weekly basis, it doesn’t just end after a few weeks. Every Sunday you struggle to hit the weekly target and then Monday is all starts again and you’re back behind the eight ball.  Add in progressively hard sessions and towards the end of a marathon training session you can feel absolutely finished. Luckily you have a few weeks tapering and then 3 days carbo-loading before the big event. These two activities certainly help at the end of a marathon plan.

So back to indicator sessions and races. I can see from my progressive run finish times over the last few months I am making an improvement. This sort of information helps spur you on as you move towards your ultimate goal. A glimmer of light in the dark tunnel of marathon training. I mentioned in a earlier post marathon training ‘is a slog‘, natural talent plays a part but good old fashioned hard work can make as much of a difference, this allows runners like myself, who are prepared to put in an extra few kilometres, gain an advantage or at least level the playing field.

As I have mentioned many times, and it’s even one of my golden rules, you need to document everything and Strava (http://www.strava.com ) or even Training Peaks , ( https://www.trainingpeaks.com ) these need to be your weapons of choice. As you move along your marathon plan you see improvement in the pace and/or distance of sessions, this gives you the push you need to get to Sunday, add up your kilometres (or look at Strava as the days of adding up left us when Bill Gates invented Excel of course. Thanks Bill.) and then start thinking about Monday morning and starting at zero again. Constantly look for improvements as you work towards the marathon, these will also give you the mental strength you will need in the race, ‘trust in your training’ is one of my favourite running mantras and these small victories help to reinforce this.  Keep looking for these improvements , they do make a difference.

Right, Sunday almost finished, another 10k maybe and then it’s time to reset my weekly totals back to zero and back behind the eight ball I scuttle ready for another week of running, wouldn’t have it any other way really, I mean,  what else is there ?