Manchester Marathon Training: Week 2

Smudge’s Week

This week’s training was partially interrupted by three days of seventeen hour shoots as part of my job, however not playing football on Sunday before meant that I could utilise the early part of the week more than I have been able to in previous weeks.

Despite the long work days, I still attempted to get a bit of training in early in the morning or on lunch breaks, although the main problem of working on video production sets for long hours is usually the unhealthy diet which is often a result of eating the only thing that’s available.

Video Production Set Food

Monday:

5k run on the treadmill followed by 20 minutes on a cycling machine and a six mile walk.

Tuesday:

A three mile run and an hour of yoga.

Wednesday:

A six mile run followed by some leg weight training.

Thursday:

Couldn’t get any training in due to work.

Friday:

A three mile run.

Saturday:

Another long work day but went for a jog during lunch break.

Sunday:

Again another long work day but went for a six mile walk followed by an hour of weight training.

Follow Smudge on Twitter @Smudge_Jones

Rakhi’s Week

As the previous week’s running had been pretty shoddy, I jumped back on the marathon wagon and made sure that I was going to train hard to reach that weekend’s goal of a 12 mile run, which I planned to do on the Sunday.

Monday was a rest day, although I’m not sure what I was resting from since the day before training had been pathetic (the snow’s fault, remember).

On Tuesday I did a six mile run which conveniently ended up on my mum’s doorstep where a delicious home-cooked meal was waiting for me- it’s important to give yourself rewards.

On Wednesday I received an email from the Manchester Marathon organisers to say that they were doing a group training run that Sunday. I signed up straight away and thought that was enough marathon-related stuff for one day.

Thursday was another six mile run, in the gym this time. I’ve noticed loads of people training for the marathon and had to queue to get on a machine. I’ll stick to pounding the pavements unless I’m fartleking or hill training.

Longford Park

On Friday I did a hill training session in the gym before heading out to Islington Mill for a friend’s birthday, which was like an endurance test in itself. After dancing for six hours to pounding house music I felt like I’d done a marathon- a good excuse to stay in bed on Saturday then. Actually, I could be on to something here, marathoners should alternate their training runs with clubbing, I’ll suggest it to Coach Julie (author of the training plan I’m following).

I dragged myself out of bed on Sunday morning (a time which used to be reserved for leisurely lie-ins) and jogged to Longford Park to join other marathon runners for the group training session. There were lots of people of all different levels, abilities and seriousness. We separated ourselves into distance and time- I went for 12 miles at a 9.30 minute mile pace. We followed the marathon route and I felt surprisingly alright, until the last stretch. Still I managed to complete the run at a faster pace of about 8.20 minute miles.

There are a few more group training runs organised pre-marathon and I wholeheartedly recommend them for the longer distances which are so hard to do alone. The next one is on 4 March.

Follow Rakhi on Twitter @Rakhi_Sinha