April 2011 - Ups and Downs

As the title suggests, April was a bit of an up-and-down month. I was expecting to increase my mileage from the 214kms I ran in March, but for one reason or another I was unable to run consistently throughout the month. In total I managed 11 runs for a total of 174.72kms which in itself is not too bad but fatigue, poor weather, and my first real brush with illness this year kept me off the roads a little more than I would have liked.

I ran another half-marathon race, in which I decided to try and break 1:45 (rather than run it as a marathon paced training run) and was successful with a personal best 1:44:24 (race report here).

I also managed some quality long runs, with a 30km at my easy pace of 6:00 mins/km. As the kilometers clicked by, it got pretty tiring, but running for 3 hours has given me a great deal of confidence that I will be able to stay the course during the marathon race, and keep my mind occupied an in the present (rather than stressing about what is to come, and what has been).

To be honest, I am starting to feel nervous for the big race, I am taking that as a good sign, it shows I care about my race performance and I will be mentally ready for what I will have to face during the race. Not long now, just another 3 weeks and some speed work and shorter runs as I taper my mileage so that I will feel fresh when I line up in my assigned start corral.

I think that in training for a marathon and by keeping this blog I have been able to take a good look at my training and I have discovered the things I am doing well (speed work, recovery techniques, mental aspects, nutrition etc.) and the things I need to work on (pacing during long runs, consistency, motivation when conditions are not as good as I would like). I can take these lessons and make myself a better runner in the future, which is an added bonus that I did not realize I would get when I embarked on the road to 42.2.