My Training Week: Oxford Half Marathon

This was the first week since Great North Run that I have physically felt in a good enough place to be able to look towards the Oxford Half Marathon on Sunday 10th October -  one week away! I won my place in this race, so it was never really part of the long term plan, hence the rather non existent focused training - but I will be giving it my best shot regardless!

MONDAY: following my 10k race on Sunday I decided to be sensible (for once in my life!) and not run today; especially with my sports massage booked in for Tuesday, which I hoped was going to really rejuvenate my limbs! I thus opted for another forty minutes of cross training, with the addition of headphones and my own choice of music to help get me through, followed by my Body Pump class. 

TUESDAY: started the day with my Sports Massage - it felt amazing on my legs and was considerably less painful than I expected, and thankfully also left me with considerably less bruising than normal! It was fascinating to hear that the tightness in my lower legs I had been experiencing had actually caused my feet to turn in a slightly- crazy how the body works! Body Attack class in the evening.

WEDNESDAY: an 8k run before my Body Pump class. Post massage tenderness was more prevalent today, and my legs felt painful with every step, which did take the enjoyment out somewhat! Managed to keep to sub 5min/km pace though.

THURSDAY: the beautiful evening led me to running around the local Common (see image), as it felt more fitting to admire the setting sun than the usual residential streets I like to roam. The Common can slow me down as the terrain is a little tricky, but again I kept to sub 5min/km pace for the 9km, but most importantly really enjoyed the run.

FRIDAY: Rest Day

​SATURDAY: I strangely found myself drawn to the treadmill to run today as I wanted to try a shorter faster run. I ran 5k with sprint intervals of 30-40secs and actually quite enjoyed it. Did a bit more cross training afterwards working on hill intervals and some core work.

​SUNDAY: I wanted to run longer today, the last time before Oxford Half, so I knew I needed to make sure I gave myself the best chance of getting through the run after a number of horror long runs over the last month. To achieve this I chose not to take my Garmin watch with me so I couldn't get annoyed or disheartened by my pace. I further opted for a route which I knew was ten miles without needing to rely on GPRS. I had also not ran my chosen route for a long time, so this felt more motivating in itself. All these choices definitely helped the run, and it turned out to be my first reasonably good long run in a long time! My mind however was still wanting it to be hard, waiting for some pain to kick in or for the struggle to start. It feels like my confidence to run long, outside of a race scenario, has been dented a bit and is thus something I need to build back again. I hope today's run has been the first step towards this.