I think I was supposed to be posting once a month to keep myself on target and accountable for my running progress but yeah, that hasn’t happened.
To be honest it’s all been a bit of a mixed bag since the winter with good months (145 miles in December) and not so great ones (more on that later). With a couple of weeks to go before I’m supposed to be running the 2021 MK marathon I thought I’d better do a brief recap.
January and February were kind of non-starters after running so well in December. I’d planned to take it easy for a week or two in January but took a while to get motivated again. The weather was brutally cold too, it’s hard to get excited about going for a run when the ground is iced over and it’s -5 outside (for me, at least).
I decided in March to pull myself together. I printed out a training plan for the 10 or so weeks until the marathon. Nothing too taxing, 5 running days per week. I decided to just focus on building up my distances and leave the speed work for later. I decided I must stick to the plan if I’m serious about attempting the marathon.
It’s now the end of April now and I’m happy to say I’ve been not only been keeping to the plan, but I’m actually starting to feel confident about all of this! There have been some hard weeks where I’ve been pretty exhausted but overall I can feel my fitness coming back. I’ve managed a couple of 20 milers and covered 350 miles so far this year. The warmer weather has brought a huge boost to my motivation – I’m remembering why I enjoyed running in the first place.
I realise this has turned into a bit of a smug post, but it makes a change after months of being frustrated with myself. I feel like I’m getting back to where I want to be. The marathon attempt will be in a couple of weeks and I think I might be ready for it. I’m not expecting it be easy but I’m excited that I might actually be able to run the distance after so long out of practice. Let’s see what happens.
