Long Run takes it's Toll

Last week’s marathon training consisted of: a four mile recovery run on Sunday; one mile reps on Monday; a steady five mile run on Tuesday; a 5k SB at the SVHC Clydebank race on Wednesday; a seven mile general run on Thursday and a fifteen mile long run on Saturday. Nothing too strenuous but the long run took its toll on me and I was shattered for the rest of the weekend. It was a step up on distance and speed on last weeks 13.1 mile run @ 8:30 min/miles.

I set off from the Burrell at 7:50 am and ran along the national cycle route to Paisley, at a steady 8:20 pace. I turned right and headed down past what used to be the Silver Threads (punk) Disco towards Morrisons, around the roundabout, over the quaint bridge and then retraced my footsteps back to Pollok Park, meeting a group of Bella Road Runners on the way and arriving back just before 9:30. I ran around the paths, loosing some time, until the parkrun started and joined in to complete the remainder of my15 miles. I had decided to wear my sensible hat and not to sprint the last part of my run. I did however overtake a runner, William Gillespie, on the last hill and he chased after me, overtaking me on the final strait to finish with a new PB of 25:21. I refused to take the bait and placed 130th out of 251 runners with a time of 25:24. I therefore only received 1 point for the run and slipped to 22nd place in the Men’s Points Table, however I’ve now finished 47 parkruns and only have a further 3 to do to reach that elusive 50 mark.

After chatting and handing in my token I headed for a warm down with Jim Buik and Suzanne McMahon before changing and heading to the Burrell Café, where the staff informed me that they thought it was so funny a couple of weeks ago when they had seen me run past them twice with the Men’s Health 10k. After a while I headed home for a cold bath and hot brunch before heading back to bed.

I had been up at 6:30 am to have some porridge to give me slow releasing energy and had taken a jelly babies and some Lucozade every 5k or so. However within a few minutes of starting my run, I was sweating profusely and must have been dehydrated by the time I completed my 15 miles, 2 hours and 5 minutes later.  This is the furthest that I've run since 15 march this year.  I’ve been in touch with Your Sports Fuel, who provided Mark Cooper's energy drink for his 50 marathons and they’ve offered me a 15% discount. In the meantime I’ll keep on drinking loads of water.


This week’s schedule:
Sun: 4 Mile recovery run - stiff, sore and tired but enjoyed the refreshing run in the wind and rain.
Mon: 5 Mile, 42 mins
Tue: Intervals - 1M jog, 7 x 800 metres with 200m recoveries, 1M jog
Wed: 8 Mile, 66 mins
Thur: Tempo - 1M jog, then 3M brisk, then 1M jog
Fri: Rest
Sat: 5 Miles Easy
Sun: Girvan Half Marathon