I haven’t had much time to write lately as life has been busy busy busy, but I’m here now for a quick update on our buggy marathon preparations.
I’ve notched up three long stroller runs of 26km, 30km and 28km, though only the first of these was actually done with DD as she’s been back at school. Instead, I rummaged in the man cave and found a 10kg sack of mystery powder (tiling grout?) which I paired with a 5L bottle of water to make a “stunt daughter” of approximately the right weight. Yes, that’s right, I’ve been running all round Toulouse with a buggy containing no actual child!! There’s dedication for you, ha ha.
It has suddenly become very hot here (seemingly went from winter to summer overnight – not sure what happened to spring this year) and I have to admit my two most recent long runs have been a huge struggle. On Monday I was aiming for 30km but had to call it a day early as I had nothing left. I am seriously questioning my ability to get round 42.2km pushing DD. It’s such a long way and the extra weight sucks energy out of me so fast.
Other than the long runs, I’ve been trying to keep to my usual rough pattern of one session of short, sharp reps per week and one session of longer efforts, with a couple of easy runs. This week, for example, I did 30 x 30 seconds hard / 30 seconds recovery as my speedwork yesterday, which will be followed by a sustained 3,000m on the track this weekend.
In fact, the latter is part of the iconic French Athletics Federation (FFA) “Interclubs” tournament, which I am participating in for the first time this year. The first round was a couple of weeks ago, hosted by my club in Blagnac. It felt very strange lining up in a crop top with the teenagers! I didn’t run well, but perhaps I’ll have a chance to redeem myself this Sunday at round two in Rodez.
My overall volume is roughly 70km/week at the moment, still with two complete rest days as it’s just not possible to fit a run in on the days I work. As well as my weighted buggy long run, I’m making sure I do at least one run with DD in the pushchair, which happily she’s always eager to do. Usually this is an easy jog, but last Saturday I was super pleased with 2 x 3km hard along the canal, where I managed to average about 4:00min/km pace on the efforts.
I feel fairly happy about the balance in my week and usually find my legs feeling pretty fresh when it’s time to run. That said, I am looking forward to some serious rest after this final marathon. It’ll be my fourth within ten weeks – bonkers I know. I lost one of my big toenails today, which was a gruesome reminder that I desperately need to let my body recover before the next challenge, whatever that may be.
