Hey everyone, I’m back blogging again after a few weeks’ break in which my husband and I travelled to my native Scotland for 10 days. We had a fantastic trip and it was awesome to see my family and friends there again!

OK, where to start talking about my marathon training? I have to admit that I haven’t followed my training plan to the letter, especially while I was in Scotland, although I’m still pretty happy with how my training is going. I think I really needed a rest, to be honest, and I’m feeling so much better for it.

Week 7 I was still in Colorado all week. I only ran 3 out of 7 days. Monday’s run was 6.2 miles with a few faster miles in the middle which got my heart rate up nicely, then Thursday’s run was a steady 8.6 miles. On the Saturday I did an easy-paced 20.2 miles – a nice big long marathon training run! My total mileage for the week was 35 miles.

Week 8 I was mostly in Scotland as we travelled on the evening of Monday March 13th – that morning I got a run in here in Colorado of a steady 7.05 miles. I didn’t run again until the Thursday in Scotland (an easy-paced 8.05 miles). I’d hoped to run on the Wednesday morning but was still a bit too jet-lagged! On the Saturday morning I did the RUN to Change Lives St Patrick’s Day ShamROCK Stampede 5k virtually, since I couldn’t do the in-person race in Colorado. That went pretty well (my time was 24.24) and got me a nice bit of tempo work done. Afterwards I enjoyed a nice easy 1.1 mile cool-down run back to the hotel. And that was it for Week 8’s running, giving me a total for the week of 19.3 miles, not ideal for marathon training but hey ho, I was on vacation, and, like I say, I think the rest has actually done me good.

Week 9 was split between Scotland and Colorado, as we travelled back on Thursday March 23rd. Monday’s run was a fairly steady 6.2 miles, then Wednesday’s was an easy-paced 5.35. Back in Colorado on Friday morning (the jet-lag isn’t as bad coming back to the States) I enjoyed a nice 5 mile tempo run in which I achieved negative splits (yay!), followed by a nice 2.1 cool-down run home. On Sunday (yesterday) I did another nice long run of 20.1 miles – my last big long one before the marathon. It went really, really well and it’s true that the really long runs give you that mental confidence for the marathon distance. When training for my last two marathons I did even longer runs of 23 miles / 21 miles, but I’ve decided against that this time around. I’m taking my long runs at an easier pace and it’s taking me just over 3 hours to run 20 miles, and there is some research that suggests that marathon training runs of more than 3 hours don’t actually add any more benefit and may actually increase the chance of injury / over-exertion. My total mileage for Week 9 was 38.75, which I’m happy enough with.

I hate to admit it, but I haven’t done any full strength workouts during these past three weeks of training – getting ready for then being on vacation is my excuse! However I have been consistent at doing one or two core exercises after every run (sometimes I did calf raises too as I try avoid a repeat of last year’s Achilles problem). There’s been no cross-training either, but I’m definitely getting back to some indoor cycling this week!

I can’t believe I’m going into Week 10 of training already! Only 3 weeks to go until marathon day! I got my bib number yesterday on the Boston Marathon website! This week I intend to actually follow my training schedule again and get a couple of full strength workouts done, as well as getting back into cross-training.

Wishing everyone a great week!

Thanks for reading!

Lynne.