Week 5 of my marathon training schedule is a wrap! It was yet another up-and-down week, with a bit of a crisis of confidence. I was having some trouble with my lower back again (a recurring problem for me) – it had started to be achey, both when running and at rest, with some sciatic nerve pain. When I get this issue I also get a strange kind of strained feeling in my ankles when running which is radiating down from my back. Like I said I would at the outset of my training schedule, I did the sensible thing and went to my chiropractor on Thursday.  He did the necessary adjustments, and I’m happy to say that my back has felt much better, especially a couple of days after my visit. He reckons I should be visiting once a week, and since I pay a monthly subscription instead of pay-per-visit, I’m going to do that, especially during marathon training.

Anyway, what with my back giving me some problems and just generally feeling a little tired, I was feeling somewhat, “can I do this?” with regards to running this marathon. I wasn’t feeling good about it at all, and was not looking forward to my long run on Sunday. I even took a rest day on Saturday, which wasn’t on the schedule, but I felt like rest would benefit me more than going out there and running the day before my long run. This means that my mileage for the week was lower than I had planned, but sometimes you have to listen to your body and do what feels right. I was listening to my mind as well as my body – I felt that psychologically I needed a rest day too before heading out for Sunday’s long run.

With all that said, my Sunday long run actually turned out to be fantastic! I was dreading it for nothing! My back felt great, I took it easy, had good fuel and water with me, and once I got a few miles in I began to really enjoy it and I felt really proud of myself at the end for running 18.45 miles when I really hadn’t been feeling it beforehand. I feel like I’ve got back all my enthusiasm for marathon running too after that long run, which I’m super happy about! I know that I’m very fortunate to have a place in the Boston Marathon, and I want to go there and do the very best I can and really enjoy the whole experience.

All in all, my total running mileage for Week 5 was 39.15 (not the planned 48). I did get back into cross-training, with an hour-long indoor cycling class on Thursday evening (during which I cycled 16 miles). I only did one strength workout (35 minutes on Tuesday) but did do core exercises after all my runs. Hopefully during this coming week, I’ll actually manage to do everything that’s on my plan – 48 miles, two 30 minute strength workouts and an indoor cycling class. Fingers crossed!

Hope everyone’s having a great Monday!

Thanks for reading!

Lynne.