The Road To Chester: Week 1

It's now sixteen weeks to my first marathon at Chester, so it's time to start kicking into serious marathon training. With that in mind I decided to revive the blog; there has been plenty of running things going on but I've not had chance to sit down and write about them. So on Sunday of each week from now until race day (6th October) I'm going to review my weeks training and see what I've done, how I've done and how I'm feeling.

Week 1 Highlights

• 54.5 miles ran this week.
• Training plan changed after just 3 days!
• Joined a running club.
• Oldham 10k completed.

54 miles is a lot for the first week of marathon training but there are mitigating factors! I started off with a "Smart Coach" plan I got from Runners World. Week one, day one was a rest day; I'd already had the Sunday off as this was going to be the last Sunday I got to rest until mid-October so I wasn't going to spend another day with my feet up! After talking with Charlie at work he suggesting using a training plan that got him round to a 2:54 at the VLM this April. No rest days on this plan, just easy runs on some days. 

The other reason for the extra miles is I joined Royton Road Runners during the week and went for my first club training session on Thursday. I have wanted to join a club for a while but have been unable to make the training sessions. While I could have joined and not gone to training this left me thinking I would be missing out on part of the club experience. I know lots of people who run for "RRR" and all have great things to say about the club and it was my first choice but getting to Royton for 6:45 was causing a problem. Enter centre stage Emma & Becki from the amazing Oldham parkrun crowd who were also joining and kindly offered lifts to training. I was in! Training was 9 mile run done at a decent pace with occasional pauses to let everybody bunch back up - this wasn't a problem but it was more than I'd planned for Thursday. I know for next week now. 

Technically it's now summer, though as I look out of the window and see wind and rain I'm not so sure, it's the middle of the race season with events coming thick and fast. I've got four 10k races before the middle of July; the advice I've been given is Sunday's need to be long run day not 6 mile races but I'm thinking get these done then move on to the serious business of Sunday long runs. 

This week it was the first running of the Oldham 10k joining it's big brother the Milltown to Moors Half Marathon as part of the Milltown Series. 

At the time of writing the full results have yet to be published but I'm told I've finished 33 overall out of 400'ish finishers which is pleasing. The course was very different from my last 10k in Liverpool and not just because there was no tunnel! Being ran in Oldham it was always going to have a hill or two in there but nothing serious still making the climbs on the way back into the wind did make for a challenge. Happy with the result as I've not rested up for it as I normally do and on the back of a 50+ mile week the legs did feel it towards the end.

Next week will be my first long run of the training program down as 14 miler and I need to get one in as the following two Sundays are both 10k races, oh with one on a Tuesday night too.

15 weeks to go.......