Oops, I've Done it Again!

Gold Coast Marathon - 13 Weeks to Go

In the dark ages (aka 2009) I trained for and ran the Melbourne Marathon while keeping this blog. Since then I've just written the odd race report, but mostly it disappeared into blog-scurity. Even last year, when I completed three marathons I didn't write up anything ... though for a funny look at how I unravelled during the Great Ocean Road Marathon you can watch this little video :-)


Fast forward to 2014 and the need for me to do another marathon with "proper" training when I see that one of my friends (hi Kim!) has entered the Gold Coast Marathon in July. Boom - there it is! 2 hours later and I had entered, booked flights and somewhere to stay.

Now for the training!

So I've dusted off my old Furman "Run Less Run Faster" program and put together a 13-week plan to get me to the Gold Coast in good shape. This is week one of that plan. And, just like last time, I'm going to use this blog to record my training and other random thoughts along the way.

It's Thursday today and it is my first day of no running this week (my legs are glad of this!)

On Monday I completed an easy 9k @5.12 m/k with Nike+ Run Club as part of their Run for the Kids training sessions. I also ran with them last night, winding it back even more for an easy 5.7k @5.06 m/k in the rain. Even better, the folks from Ben and Jerry's were handing out ice-cream which I managed to grab and eat whilst running along. Mmmm.

Sandwiched between these two easier run was my first Furman session - a speed/interval set of 5x 1km efforts with a 400m float in between. Last time round I did all these sets at the local athletics track, but I'm trying new things this time and so decided to run it on the footpaths around home. BIG MISTAKE!

It was a rainy night and within ten minutes my glasses were covered in water droplets and fog from my breath. Add in a steady stream of oncoming headlights from cars and I could not see a thing. To make matters even harder, there are so many low hanging trees on this path that I was getting wacked in the head every few hundred metres and had to dodge numbers of obstacles/path closed along the way too.

Suffice to say that my five efforts were somewhat slower than planned and slower than what I think I could actually run if I wasn't worried about just staying upright. I completed these in 4.08/07/10/15/12 against a plan of ~4.00 even. I'm not really too worried about the time, it was just good to get out and run hard again.

My first video blog in this series is also up on YouTube:

Friday 11 April

On Friday I took time at lunch to head out for my tempo run. After the run in the dark and rain it was great to run in daylight when you could see where you were going. The program called for 7k @4.31 pace with warm up and cool down bringing this to about 10k. In my rush to leave home I had forgotten to pack my running socks and paid the price for this with a few blisters by the end of the run :-(

I headed out along the Yarra River and began my effort when I got to Punt Rd bridge. The path here is wonderful and twists and turns as it follows the river on one side and the freeway on the other. I was really determined to run on target pace and not get carried away. That said, the first kilo was a bit fast, but I got back on track through the second k and ran evenly thereafter. I finished off with a couple of slightly quicker k's and finished with 7k @4.31 pace. Woo! Hoo! My best run in a while, very happy!

Strava Links for the week:

Monday - Nike+ Run Club 9k @5.12; easy cruise
Tuesday - Street Speed Session 8.6k @4.55; hard and wet 5x 1k
Wednesday - Nike+ Run Club 5.7k @5.06; eating ice cream in the rain
Friday - Tempo 10.5k @4.43; minus socks plus blisters
Sunday - Run for the Kids 14.8k @4.19; hard race - great time!

Weekly Summary:

Week 1 (this week): 5 runs, 48.6 km, 3 hours 51 minutes