San Francisco Marathon Training: Weeks 2-4

After a good first week of marathon training, which ended with the Silverstone half marathon, the following three weeks have been good too. So far I am keeping all niggles and injuries away (I’m hoping this sentence won’t have tempted fate). I started seeing a chiropractor at the beginning of my training to sort out problems I was getting with my hip and back, and this seems to be paying off, as I feel so much better, both in my running and on a day-to-day basis. He even introduced me to a session of acupuncture in my lower back, which hurt a fair bit at the time but seems to have really helped.

So I’ve been following my Runners World 3:15 marathon plan, which consists of 6 sessions a week (rest day is Friday – I love Fridays!). The sessions are based on a short recovery run on Monday (4miles), a tempo run (Tuesday), a longish mid-week run or hills (Wednesday), a track session (Thursday), a long weekend run and a 5 mile weekend run. I’m in the very lucky position that the Spa Strider sessions seem to complement my training plan very well and I’ve been doing the majority of my runs with the club, which is a real help. I’m also trying to swap the odd session for some cross-training. On the weekends I have been able to do my long runs with Dan, who runs a large part of the distance with me. This is a real help as it breaks the distance up into two, somehow making it feel shorter. As Dan is training for the SF half marathon this works out really well distance wise as we push each other along…and it also means I have a cup of tea waiting for me when I get back…thank you Dan!!!! We’ve had some interesting runs so far, with last weekend being in the snow! Our ‘Dip and Dash’ aquathon which was scheduled for last weekend was cancelled. I have to say, given the conditions, I wasn’t relishing the thought of running 5km around a snowy field having just climbed out of a swimming pool. So perhaps a summer aquathon might be on the cards if we can find one.

So now I’m in the middle of Week 5 and this weekend will be a 16 miler, so I’m still just edging up the miles – still another few weeks until my first 20 miler. Unfortunately this one falls the weekend after London marathon, so I’m guessing I won’t have any takers from Spa Striders to cover the whole distance with me!