A marathon week and holiday time

Can you believe it is blog 3 in this series of me musing on (virtual) ink as I make my way to Toronto Marathon? Training for this race, with a specific focus on it, is significant departure for me. Marathon training is hard.

After last week’s training, where Paul grabbed me by the pants and launched me straight at the deep end, this week was a build on that.

If you are reading this blog from anywhere other than Scotland let me use a single word to describe the weather over the last 7 days. Scottish. That is to say, rain, sun, wind, cold, warm, damp, dry and everything in between. And I love it. I am off on hols with the family for a week and it will be 30+ everyday and I will love that too. But, there’s something just so satisfying in getting it done in the crappiest of weather.

My two thematic goals for the week were to simply build on last week’s long effort but with more consistent pacing and to go back to parkrun, after a medium long run right before, and put in a strong effort.

Over the week I did some decent miles. My long run was on Wednesday. 27 miles with 3x 15 mins tempo pick-ups. Last week I went out FAR TOO HARD on the first long run tempo effort. This week I was much smarter and as as result my first pick-up was the slowest and all 3x 15 mins were well under target marathon pace. I waited until 11 miles in before starting these sets. My big learning from the run was a) take more than 2 gels b) don’t forget to rub vaseline in those nottobenamedontheinternet places when it is raining. If I had a spare gel I may have used it for that.

On Saturday I met Martin Gray - the hero of John Muir Way - for a 24k run. Meeting at Victoria Park in Glasgow, heading east to just shy of Paradise and then back again. The chat meant the 110 minutes felt like 11 minutes. For me anyway. For Martin, it may have felt longer than the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

After the 24k I stepped into Glasgow’s Victoria parkrun. Nearly 400 starters. A tad busier than Palacerigg the week before. I had no hope of leading this one out. There were more club vests than an underground New York bar in 1983. I was in my Johnny Cash-esque man-in-black Pyllon gear.

After 1k I was in 3rd and just decided to fight the fatigue and see if I could lead the run all the way. Being pushed would help. And it did. Despite the slippy and loopy course I managed to break my parkrun PB and run under 17 mins (by 1 second) and win by 3 seconds. That felt good. Especially as I am literally old enough to be the runner-up’s grandfather. That’s a sobering thought!

It is my pleasure to say the injury is behind me. The marathon is ahead of me. And the optimism is high. But first, there’s waterslides to get a shot of

Thanks for reading!
(Written by James Stewart)