4 Weeks to Go!

There's only 4 weeks until the London Marathon and everyone is very glad of that!  The mileage has been piling up and the intensity of my training has stepped up in the last couple of weeks as I am to peak on the 13th April.

Last week was a 70miler. This week got off to a good start as I felt fresh and motivated. But some long days in the office have left me a little jaded and it's been more of a struggle as the week has gone on.

The weekend has been glorious but with 4 kids it's not possible to nip out for a few hours during the day. So for me it's early starts which is not great when you're already shredded from work.

Yesterday was easy enough, an early 5 miles over to Kinsbourne Green and back. That was followed by a day of cycling, walking up and down town a few times and a bit of gardening.

So this morning the legs were stiff and tired but fortunately I was on an easy Sunday and the plan was for 15miles (click to see the route).

I headed out towards Luton, up to Sommeries Castle, along to Peters Green, past Laura and Andrew's house and then unto Sauncey Wood. From there I extended over to Piggotshill and then it was home.

I had some good tunes on the iPod and was grateful of a bit of Coldplay helping me over my first climb.

On a couple of flat bits I threw in some marathon pace efforts to see if I could settle at 7:30 pace without looking at the Garmin. I wasn't too bad which is a reasonably good sign, I think?

I was fairly much out of it when I got back. The last couple of miles were tough and I had to grit my teeth to keep going. In the end I averaged 9:10 pace which is probably a bit faster than I planned.

It was a good week. Confidence building sessions on Wednesday & Friday confirm I'm back to my pre illness levels. It's taken a good 6 weeks to get back but patience has worked well.

The coming week has a couple if big sessions. On Wednesday I plan to do a 17 miler and then on Sunday a 20 miler. On Sunday I'm hoping to split it into slow and marathon pace efforts.