Second Week of Marathon Training Schedule

The second week of training for the Paris Marathon in April is over with another three runs this week. I was hoping to be at half marathon distance by the turn of the new year so I would have a good three months to build up to the distance but an injury put paid to the plans for December. After losing a month's training I began to think a marathon in April would be a tall order but after logging into myasics.co.uk and creating a marathon training plan I'm feeling a bit better about the prospects.  I still feel it will be tough and I probably won't break my marathon PR but the aim now is to get to the finish line. I can always try to break my PR at Dublin in October.

The three runs this week consisted of two 8km runs and finished with a 12km run today. Today's run was the toughest run I've had in a long time. My Achilles are a bit sore after the run and I'm looking after them. They haven't been great of late but I feel I'm getting better at looking after them and they are on the mend. I tired early in the run but knew I needed to finish as the plan for next week is a 16km long run and without today's run that would be even tougher. After running every second day for the last two weeks I now have a break until Monday night,  almost three days. This should aid recovery and I'll be running 3 days a week from now on.

The holidays end tomorrow and we will be flying home to Ireland. It has been a great break, as always, but it is time to go home to run in the cold.

On the Road to Recovery

While Thursday was a bad day, Saturday was a good day.  13km done, no aches or pains and I felt I could have done more.  As the post title says I feel I'm on the road to recovery.  I also maintained a nice pace around and got in a lovely sprint at the end, before my cool down.

I'm starting to think that my shoes may be a factor in my injury.  I've been running in my Asics GT 2150 and New Balance 1064  for a while now and felt they still had more mileage left in them but now I'm not too sure.  My Asics has 606km on them and the New Balance has 496km.  I've just bought two new pairs of runners, one is the Brooks Ghost 4 and the other is the Saucony Kinvara.  I was running in the New Balance on Thursday when I had to stop early and then I used the Brooks runners on this run and they felt great and more importantly my Achilles felt great too.  Could my runners with 600km and 500km be at the end of their life span?  Should I not be able to get 750km out if them?  Another note is Tuesday's run in the Kinvara was also a lovely run with no problems.  It has got me thinking.  Any advice?

DCM Week 9: 8km Regular Part 2

Yesterday's run was a strange one.  Although the speed was similar to Tuesday's run my heart rate was higher and funnily enough I actually felt better running it than Tuesday's one, go figure.

I cancelled today's run because my legs were a little sore and I'm trying to ease myself back after the break due to illness.  My next run will be a nice 21km on Saturday morning and then I think it will be off to visit a sports store and maybe a new pair of runners.  My current two pairs have clocked up 600km (Asics GT 2150) and 447km (New Balance 1064) respectively.

I was thinking of going for the Saucony Mirage.  Anyone tried these, run in these or have any experience of these I would appreciate any comments.

On a happy note even with the 10 day absence from running due to illness I ran further than ever before in the month of August, 129km.  I guess holidays and running appeal to me.  Now to beat that distance in September.