The Sunday after Woodbank parkrun I felt weary so I did the 17 mile long run on Bank Holiday Monday instead. This went well, being completed in 2 hrs 20 mins.
On Tuesday I did 5 x 1000m intervals. I did them all in just under 4 mins which is a bit quicker than my 5K pace.
Wednesday was some more speed work with the Bramhall Runners, Friday was 12 miles slow and Saturday was 5 miles recovery.
Then it was time for the dreaded... 18 miles with 14 at marathon pace. (Aagh!)
This is possibly the toughest workout in the entire training schedule based on how shattered you feel afterwards.
Once again I did most of the fast miles on a park loop so I could just concentrate on running without worrying about hills and traffic.
I started with 2 miles warm-up and then it was time to start running at 7.30 min/mile pace. The first 7 miles were fine and then the pace gradually started to feel harder and harder. I starting having to speed up on the last 100 metres of some miles in order to complete the lap in time.
For the last 3 fast miles I was practically sprinting the last 100m to get under 7:30 minutes! However I managed to do all 14 miles faster than 7.30 pace (most were at 7:25 pace.) I was pretty chuffed about this but then...
The 2 miles warm-down were awful with me trudging along at about 10 min/mile pace. After a tempo run I find my energy levels start to rise again after about one mile's warm-down. No such luck this time. My legs had had enough of running and weren't going to be told otherwise.
When I finally got home I spent a large part of the next 3 hours sitting on the sofa shivering with a blanket around me!
However I eventually started to feel hungry (a sign that the body is starting to function again) and after a lot of food and a sleep I was more or less OK the next day.
I am not sure what possesses me to put my body through such gruelling sessions but it seems to cope! And no more long marathon pace runs for me until the day itself!
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