And so we run into week 2 of marathon training for Hyrox and Manchester Marathon. I’ve also signed up for Falkirk Half Marathon but I’m just treating it as a normal run so I don’t demolish my marathon training plans.
TLDR; this week has been pretty good! My calf has stopped hurting and I’ve integrated some stretching and rolling in for my hip pain. Reece identified my left hip pain was coming from my Gluteus Medius so stretching and rolling that has been fun! My runs have felt pretty great this week. Thursday was a brutal day tho!
How the week was supposed to go…
So as per usual… this was how the week was supposed to go.
Target was to get to 46.8km, a 19.8% increase on the week before… which going on my learnings from last week is far too big of an increase. So this is what I had planned…
| Day | Training Type | Name | Accumulator (km) |
| Monday | Resistance | Block 3, Session 1, Upper | – |
| Monday | Stretching | Foam Rolling and Stretching Session, then Sauna | – |
| Tuesday | Conditioning | Circuit Based | – |
| Tuesday | Run | Interval 100m/150m/100m x 3 each 200m rest/walk between | 7.6 km |
| Wednesday | Resistance | Block 3, Session 2, Lower | – |
| Wednesday | Run | 5k Very Easy | 12.6 km |
| Thursday | Conditioning | Circuit Based | – |
| Thursday | Run | Tempo Run 5k @ 5k Pace 2k warm/cool 4.6k Easy (11.6km total) | 13.8 km |
| Friday | HIIT | SWEAT | – |
| Friday | Resistance / Conditioning | Block 3, Session 3, Full | – |
| Saturday | Run | Easy Long Run – 21km + 2km cool | 46.8 km |
| Sunday | Rest | – | – |
And this is what actually happened!
| Day | Training Type | Name | Accumulator (km) | Rating | Notes |
| Monday | Resistance | Block 3, Session 1, Upper | – | 10/10 | Got a full session in, felt strong |
| Monday | Stretching | Foam Rolling and Stretching Session, then Sauna | – | 10/10 | Felt much better than expected |
| Tuesday | Conditioning | Circuit Based | – | 8/10 | Good session but didn’t bring it |
| Tuesday | Run | Interval 100m/150m/100m x 3 each 200m rest/walk between | 7.02 km | 10/10 | Loved it, a lot more respect for sprinters now |
| Wednesday | Rest | – | |||
| Thursday | Run | Tempo Run 4k @ 10k Pace 1k @ 5k Pace 5k warm/cool | 17 km | 5/10 | Doing a tempo run with hills what was I thinking! |
| Thursday | Conditioning | Circuit Based | – | ||
| Thursday | Run | 4.2k Easy | 21.2 km | 3/10 | Bastard of a run |
| Friday | Resistance | Block 3, Session 2, Lower | – | 8/10 | |
| Friday | HIIT | SWEAT | – | 8/10 | |
| Friday | Resistance / Conditioning | Block 3, Session 3, Full | – | 7/10 | |
| Saturday | Run | Drumpellier Park Run + Warm Up | 27.89 km | 8/10 | New park run record 23:41! |
| Sunday | Run | Easy Long Run – 24km | 52km | 7/10 | Messed up my nutrition this week, I was starving by the last 3 km. |
So a total of 52km because I did Drumpellier Park Run on Saturday. Let’s see that’s an increase of 32%… Opps! Good news is my body seems to have reacted well to it, no injuries, right calf feels good and my left hip was only a little bit sore on my long run.
Good news about the hip is Reece is doing a stretch and rolling session with me on Wednesday so I know exactly how I should be strengthening my Gluteus Medius which as I said he’s pretty sure is causing my hip pain which I get on my longer runs.
How did I do on the 80/20 rule?
Okay so…
- Interval Run – 1k
- Tempo Run – 5k
- Park Run – 5k
So that’s 11k out of 52k so…. 21% phew that’s probably why I’m not hurt! It works! Huzzah!
How’s the weight / resistance training going?
We’ll my lower session got mucked up because…
Yep my youngest got the chicken pox so I ended up spending Wednesday and Thursday helping cover looking after her so we didn’t infect the whole of nursery with chicken pox! So I ended up combining this session with SWEAT on Friday… big mistake I was absolutely goosed at the end 😅😅😅
But I managed to get all sessions in and added in two circuits. Again all positive. I don’t know if my strength is increasing but my endurance is through the roof, it just seems a matter of fueling and speed.
Nutrition and Fueling
Okay my long run…. let’s do a quick review on this. The last 3k were very very difficult. I was very very hungry. I never get hungry on a run. There’s a few contributing factors here…
- I usually go out empty for a run
- I usually take two gels with me and take one every 40 minutes
- The clocks went back an hour
So @jillmccombe pointed out the last one, I basically fasted an extra hour before going out for a long run. Then I thought I’ve only added on an extra 2k I won’t need more fueling. I’m falling back on the gel every 40 minutes on long runs, I shouldn’t have been hungry by this point and it hit me like a wall when it came in.
Park Run!
So on Saturday all was well in the McAthlete household so I realised at 9am I still had time to hit Drumpellier Park Run. My local parkrun, for those of you who don’t know it’s a weekly free (aka run by volunteers) timed 5k, it’s loads of fun. I’ve ran Drumpellier 2 times before and this is my third.
I ran a very respectable 23:41, about 1:17 off my previous best on this course but not my best 5k time. I was hoping to go sub 23 minutes. I also got taken over by an 11 year old in the last 300m to 400m, very bloody humbling but I should have done this… I SHALL HAVE MY VENGENCE!
Walking AKA Active Recovery
So one of my priorities right now is well… loose weight. Less weight means faster right. So I want to loose another 10kg over the next 12 weeks (up to Christmas).
So I went back and looked at myfitnesspal and had a look at the weeks I lost the most amount of mass. Guess what it was the weeks I walked the most in addition to my running session and resistance sessions. Guess what….
Reece Already Told Me This!
Bugger, I hate it when he tells me something I don’t take it to heart.
And guess what! Walking acts as an active recovery session. It stretches your muscles and is a low impact method of stretching your tendons. WALKING IS GREAT. It’s also increasing my mileage / meterage in a low impact method. If I keep this up I’ll loose weight and I’ll eventually be able to replace these light walks with light runs, again increasing my overall mileage. Win Win.
Pictures from the Week!
