Marathon Training Week 8 of 9

With the long runs and long marathon pace speedwork sessions in the bag the key workout of the penultimate week, 11 days out from Barcelona, involved 5/6 miles at LT Pace (10 Mile) between a mile of warm-up and cool-down. I assume the idea is to reduce volume and increase speed in order to get a bit of last minute pep into the legs. As I had missed the fastest sessions of my training programme in Week 5 (5 x 1 mile @ 10k pace followed by a HM race) I know I am behind the curve as far as speed-work is concerned. With this in mind I was a bit concerned that I would not hit the target pace, but I was there or thereabouts, perhaps overcooking it on the earlier reps, leaving me a bit wanting towards the end. I kept to 5 fast miles as I knew that 6 would be pushing the boundary too much. Not much to do now except to count down the days.

March 2015  - Week 8 of 9	June 2013  - Week 9 of 10
Session # 1 – 5/6 x 1 Mile @ LT (10 Mile) Pace
The last hard session of the training programme and where else could I go but the straight road where I have experienced most of the pain in the build up for Barcelona. My 10 mile PB pace is 6:14 but i'd be happy with anything in the 6:20 range (close enough to my HM paced runs a few week back).   The first three fast miles were heading east with a slight tailwind (I think) and went well in 6:11/07/18 and the last two heading home were in 6:14/20. I had decided that 5 repeats were enough and the slowing pace for the last rep (I had to push the last 1/4 mile to get the pace from 6:23 to 6:20 avg) was enough to confirm that. Done and dusted. No HRM.   10.02 miles in 1:13:54 (7:22 pace, No HRM) with 5 x 1 Mile in 6:11/07/18/14/20.	With a 2:56:01 Marathon at the start of Week 9 needless to say the planned speed session was canned.     Recovery from last Monday's marathon paced "training run" went quite well with a slow recovery 6 mile run on grass on Tuesday. In fact most of my running this week has been on grass with heavy legs for a few days but no niggles or DOMs.
Session # 2 – 10 to 12 Miles Slow with 6 x 100m @ 5k Pace.
I took it slow this time out – no issues. 11.4 Miles in 1:36:21 (8:28 pace @ Avg 117 Hr (616 Hb/Km)	I deferred Friday's "long run" until Saturday morning so that I could join the 7:30 pace Club run, only to show up half an hour late. I ran the route in reverse so as to meet up with the group and return with them. The pace was a little faster than planned, hitting 7:13 average over 12.28 miles on a beautiful sunny morning.