My first week of “official” marathon preparation and DD has caught Covid-19! This means that she’s been off school all week (perfectly well, just following protocol) and I’ve had to adapt my training.
Monday is always my long run day – it’s such a treat to head out in the morning after school drop-off, all by myself, after the chaos that weekends often entail. This week I couldn’t run until the kids were in bed and it was dark and very cold. My session was “only” 1hr30 of running, but with efforts of 14 – 12 – 8 – 6 minutes, increasing in intensity to 4:00/km pace. Not easy that late in the day, but I got it done.
Tuesday I did my scheduled 45 minutes easy with DD zipped into the Thule – a real pleasure to have her company and the buggy ensured I didn’t run too fast (a cardinal sin on easy run days!).
Wednesday I had to fit in 12 x 300m on the track, so once again ended up going out long after dark. By the end of my warm-up I was the only person in the whole stadium! It can be harder to hit target pace with no witnesses, but I was rocking some speedy new shoes (Altra Escalante zero-drop) bought that very day in the sales and managed to come in each time on 60 seconds (give or take).
Thursday was rest day. Much needed with nearly 70km in the legs from the previous seven days.
Today (Friday) I had to do 1hr15 base endurance, including 45 minutes at 4:30/km pace. I didn’t want to wait until bedtime and miss out on family pizza night (priorities, right?), so had no choice but to take DD along. Her weight plus the Chariot comes to 30kg these days so I wasn’t much looking forward to the quicker section. Plus I was worried she’d be too cold for such a long outing in sub-zero temperatures.
But in the end, it was a fabulous run! I tucked DD up with a hot water bottle under two blankets and set off slowly to warm myself up properly. After 5km I turned up the gas and managed to do the next 10km at the target pace (okay, slightly slower – once various curbs and other buggy obstacles were negotiated). Overall it was 16.6km in 1hr20, a super nap for DD and I came home feeling pretty pleased with myself.
Next it’s the weekend, which always entails a certain delicate balancing act between quality family time and quality runs as I’m sure anyone reading this will know! I have one hard session left to do – 7 x 5mins @ half-marathon pace – plus an easy 45 minute jog.
But, so far, not a bad week’s training all-in-all. When I saw DD’s positive test result last Sunday I did not expect to get to Friday night with this many decent runs in the bag. I have had to push myself that bit extra, so I’m giving myself a tiny pat on the back… and a large glass of red wine 🙂
