I usually write these on Sundays, but I'm going on a short 3 day trip with my family starting this Sunday, so I took a day off work to do my long run and have completed my runs this week to write this post.
This week's stats:
Box step up+down (18 inches high bench):
Monday - 32 pounds weight - 25 minutes
Wednesday - 32 pounds weight - 25 minutes
Runs:
Tuesday - 9km - 6:05/km pace - 76m elevation gain
Thursday - 6km - 6:07/km pace - 31m elevation gain
Saturday - 26km - 6:46/km pace - 211m elevation gain
Total: 41km - 318m elevation gain
Alcohol consumption:
Last Sunday - 1 can of 355mL beer
Wednesday - 1 can of 355 mL beer
How it felt this week:
Lower back pain is the theme of this week. I think I might have worn too much weight while doing the step up + step down exercise, causing too much stress on my back muscles. Having a weak core doesn't help the situation either. Need to strengthen my core muscles. Also going to try doing the step up + step down exercise without weights, using only body weight, this coming week. Also need to stretch more for better muscle recovery, flexibility, and injury prevention. Otherwise, the runs felt pretty good. I have not felt that I've been going fast enough to hit my cardio wall yet, and I'm being held back by muscle pain. So, if I can fix the muscle pain issues, I can theoretically go a bit faster than the current snail pace. Oh, and I gave into the temptation and drank 2 cans of beer. Weak. Will improve on that and try not to drink alcohol at all before the race.
Weeks before race day: 6 weeks
6 weeks out do you think your on target with your prep?
No, it doesn't feel like I will reach my goal of finishing within 4 hours. At least not at the current pace I'm running. I know I will finish for sure given this will be my 5th full marathon, but probably another 4hr30mins or so finish time. I do tend to run a bit faster during a race versus training, so I have that going for me; but I'm not feeling confident in reaching my goal with the current pace. Still a bit more time to train and prep, so we will see. If I do fail to reach my goal, there's always next year, haha.
Would you need to be like 5:30 pace wouldn’t you?
To run it under 4hrs, I need to be faster than 5:41/km pace. Obviously no where near that pace right now. I haven't given up yet and am still hopeful.
You can maybe try and do a test run for your week 5 long run at goal pace for a shorter distance see how it feels?
I'll give that a try next week. Thanks for the suggestion.
Give you a good gauge of where you’re at. And gives enough time to make changes