Long time no blog!
I have been working my way through the Hansons' 60 to 80 miles per week marathon training plan. I decided that 80 miles per week was a bit much, especially the 16 mile midweek runs, so have sanitised it a bit, cutting down a few of the warm ups and cool downs, and only doing 5 miles on Mondays, to peak at 75 miles.
The plan has been tough and I'm not sure if I would do it again in a hurry. There is a lot of speed work involved, increasing the chance of injury. It is also much nicer psychologically to be adding miles to an easy plan rather than taking miles off a hard plan. I enjoyed the advanced plan in their book which I did in the summer. This peaked at 63 miles and included a day off every week which I normally did an easy run on but could take if I needed it.
On the whole I have been surviving though - until now! My paces have increased and on Tuesday I did my best long run over with 10 miles at 8:10 minutes per mile, 5 at 7:40 and 5 at 7:00. This run was done only two days after my previous 20 miler to free up the Sunday for a Half Marathon. However my ill-fitting trainers resulted in a very painful blister forming at the base of the heel on my right foot. This has made walking painful let alone running.
I managed two 4 mile recovery runs on Wednesday but this made the blister more painful and also resulted in my biggest energy slump ever, being unable to get up from my desk that afternoon!
Yesterday I just went for a swim. Today the blister feels somewhat better. The old trainers are going in the bin and tonight I will try a short run in some better fitting trainers.
Whatever state my blister is in I suspect I will race the Wilmslow Half on Sunday. This is one of my favourite races of the year and plenty of my club mates are doing it. Last year I came first in my club. Blister apart I should be on for a PB and a chance of first in club again.
Then it is just four weeks until Manchester marathon. There is supposed to be one more week of full training after Sunday but I suspect the taper has started already. The blister will see to that.
