The week before marathon weekend

November 29, 2015
| 1 Comment
| Running and life, Workout

All the distance workout are completed. It’s now the week before the marathon, Enrico, a good friend calls events he participates in “the big dance”, I choose to call it “my big kid moment”. Big kid moment was coined by Michelle, another good friend from University.  So the big dance and the big kid moment will be upon us in a week. How do I approach it?

I had done my LSDs, although not as much as I had wanted and one should not be doing LSDs less than 10 days before the marathon. The body should be allowed to recover and doing a LSD now will only be a case of diminishing returns. My final serious workout was Saturday. It was a tempo pace bordering on helter skelter pace, and a hill repeats rolled into one. Helter skelter being a reference to a U2 song. All told it was a 15km run.

The workout:

  1. 2 km warm up at a lazy pace. This to iron out the kinks from my last LSD 2 days before.
  2. 10 km at a helter skelter 5:30 pace. This to cement the strength built up over the past months.
  3. 8 x small hill sprints. This to warn the body of the daunting Sheares bridge climb that awaits after 34km but more importantly to tell the body that it can do it. The placing of this segment, after the helter skelter 10km is important as the workout intends to mimic the expected actual race experience.
  4. 800 m at 5:00 pace. This to practice my finish. It will look nicer on the event photos that you are sprinting to the finish than if you were to walk. Although whether you hobble or sprint at the finish, you can be proud of yourself.
  5. Stretch and done.

For the rest of the marathon week, my workout will be:

  1. 2 runs. 4 x Yasso 800s and an easy naked 5km.
  2. Eat.
  3. Rest.
  4. Read.
  5. Abstain. From beer.

Food & beverage in marathon week

I’ve trained as well as I possibly can, so my preparations are done. Now its time to have no fear, just do it and enjoy the big kid moment.

The life lesson from running this edition, is having prepared as best you can, you should have no fear to do what you set out to do, live for the moment and enjoy it.

Good luck all and see you at the finish.