The ups and downs of marathon training.
Intro
In March of 2023 I married my wife Elisha!
We were married on 2 March 2023 in New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, followed by a week of relaxing in Fiji. Not a bad reason for a few weeks off running?
However you can’t keep me away. After a successful marathon last year completing the Great Ocean Road Marathon, I was ready to tackle a flatter course and chase a new PB. I was considering Sydney to try another Australia city marathon, but the timing for Melbourne worked out better to be able to rebuild my base kms to have a solid base followed by a full 18 week marathon block.
Base phase
Having had a few weeks off celebrating and relaxing, I was now refreshed and ready to rebuild my kms. Here’s a brief summary of how I did that.
Firstly two weeks of pretty unstructured running. I ran a week of 28km, followed by a week of 36km.
I then moved into a more structured 10 weeks of building, starting from the 3rd of April.
- Week 1: 43.1km
- Week 2: 49.8km
- Week 3: 49.6km (including Jells Park cross country relay)
- Week 4: 53.5km
- Week 5: 54km (including Albert Park 10km Road Race)
- Week 6: 55.5km
- Week 7: 69.3km
- Week 8: 65.2km (including Bendigo 8km cross country)
- Week 9: 65.2km
- Week 10: 52.1km
Most of this was easy running with a small amount of faster running in the form of strides or threshold running in the later weeks. My long run peaked at 19km. The races were fun and always help to build fitness. For the 10km road race I ran 48:56 (4:51/km pace). Well off my best but I was quite happy with that for where I was at.
Marathon training commences
From 12 June I formally commenced my 18 week marathon block for Melbourne Marathon.
Week 1 (12 June)
On the Tuesday I had a session of 13km with 6km at threshold. Unfortunately my first run of the training block went really poorly. Firstly, I had stomach issues, which for everyone’s sake I will not go into any detail about. And secondly I thought it would be a good idea to train on a fairly rough gravelly road in my saucony endorphin pro 3. These are a high stack carbon plated super shoe, which I love, but they ended up being awful on this surface. I felt very unstable and struggled with the session. Perhaps this may have been the start of my issues that I’ll get to later.
Wednesday I completed 30 mins of strength work. This has become a regular part of my program while I join Elisha for personal training with Brigitte at Life Quality Fitness & Nutrition every Wednesday.
Thursday I was late to get out for my run. I had originally planned to run 14km but cut it back to 10km. I was perfectly fine with this decision with 12km cross country planned on Saturday.
On Saturday I made the trip out to Cruden Farm for 12km cross country. This is never an easy run, I averaged 5:13/km over the hills, grass and pushing into some strong wind in the open areas. Not particular fast but it is what it is for cross country!
Sunday out to my usual place I love to be on a Sunday morning, the You Yangs. I had a planned long run of 19km but figured I would play it by feel after racing. And my legs did feel really heavy. We stuck to the flat ground and I cut it slightly shorter to 17km. I averaged 5:48/km with 152bpm heart rate.
4 runs / 54.2km for the week.
Week 2 (19 June)
Tuesday I got out for 13km with 6 x 10 sec hill sprints and 8 x 100m strides. I noted that I was pretty beat up after the weekend running with some left thigh soreness and right calf tightness. While I got through the run I kept the jogging very easy and walked the recoveries between the hill repeats.
Thursday I had a planned 16km run but was still sore so decided not to run. Got out for a walk instead.
Saturday I had an 8km recovery run. I stuck to heart rate for this run aiming to keep it low. Averaged 145bpm for the run. Still had some soreness in the left leg, but just a 1 or 2 out of 10. Felk ok to run on but aware that I need to manage it carefully.
Sunday I had a long run, 21km with 13km at marathon pace. The run went really well, cruising through the first 8km with Brigitte at 5:56/km. Then into the 13km averaging 5:17/km at 158bpm.
3 runs / 42.2km for the week.
Week 3 (26 June)
Tuesday another case of getting out quite late. I just did a short run of 6km rather than the planned 16km. Also a case of trying to get my body right so ok with dropping the load back a bit.
Wednesday short run before gym. 5km easy.
Thursday 13km with 6km threshold. I stayed away from the gravel road this time and completed the threshold on bitumen / concrete path. It was on undulating hills and into some strong winds, so pacing was on the poor side but the effort was there. Averaged around 5:00/km for the threshold, a little off my 4:40-4:50 target.
Saturday 6km recovery jog. Nice and easy 145bpm average HR.
Sunday long run at the You Yangs. 23km at an average of 5:46/km and 152bpm.
Overall a pretty good week but the left thigh soreness while not getting worse was still hanging around.
5 runs / 53.1km for the week
Week 4 (3 July)
Decided it was time to pay the physio a visit. Ryley at Symmetry Physio was really helpful. He found I had soreness with my left adductor and range of motion in my back swing is a bit limited on the left side. His advice was not to run consecutive days for the next two weeks and just easy running, no workouts, to deload it. We also discussed the possibility of a stress reaction as the soreness is in a similar area to where I had my stress reaction in 2018. Normally he wouldn’t have considered it at all, but because I’ve had one in the past there’s a chance it could be. If no change over next two weeks will book me in for a scan.
Tuesday I ran 13km. Noted left adductor 1/10 soreness. Didn’t bother me too much on the run but it’s there.
Thursday 16km run. Fairly windy through sections. Left leg a 2/10. Not great but ok.
Sunday long run at the You Yangs. Still focussed on keeping my long runs up to salvage marathon training. I ran 24km and averaged 5:44/km. No change to the adductor soreness.
3 runs / 53km for the week.
Week 5 (10 July)
Tuesday 14km run from home. Nothing notable.
Friday 10km run. I was limited on time and had wanted to do 16km, but noted 10km felt like enough.
Sunday long run at the You Yangs. We did great circle which is always tough but rewarding. The plan was 26km, however at around 22km I could just feel the soreness through my adductor and groin a little more so stopped there.
3 runs / 46.2km for the week.
Week 6 (17 July)
Monday I had my follow up physio appointment with Ryley. Essentially my leg soreness hadn’t gotten any better, perhaps slightly worse. He agreed that it was time to get scans and referred me to sports doctor Dr Greg Harris. Additionally time to take a break from running.
Thursday I had a quick telehealth with the Dr and received my referral for MRI scan for my hip and femur. I also got to the pool for some good ol’ swimming and pool running!
Sunday I did an hour on the spin bike, fun times.
0 runs / 500m swim / 1 hour bike / 30 mins gym
Week 7 (24 July)
I set myself a bit of a challenge to get to 10,000 steps per day. It was one way to help stay active. 10,000 doesn’t sound like that much but it can be hard when you work an office job from home and not running.
Wednesday I rode my bike to gym (13.5km).
Thursday back to the pool for total of 1000m.
Sunday a longer ride on the mountain bike. 26km and it was very windy.
0 runs / 1000m swim / 39.5 bike / 15 mins gym
Week 8 (31 July)
Tuesday night I went in for my MRI scan at Imaging @ Olympic Park.
I then met with the Sports Doctor on Thursday to go over the results. The bad news is that the scans did show something in the same spot of my femur where I had my stress reaction in 2018. The good news is that it’s very minimal, to the point where he thinks there’s probably something there but wasn’t fully confident. There was also nothing else showing for my adductor or hip which is great. The frustrating thing is that there’s no obvious cause of why it occurred. Most likely it’s something to do with my running form so I think I’ll be doing some work on that.
In terms of my return to running, I may be able to start some walk / jogs as soon as next week. Still with only 10 weeks to go until the marathon now I think it’s most likely out of the question.
Summary
Overall a very rocky and unpredictable block of training. Since entering Melbourne Marathon this year I had planned on writing a Road to Melbourne blog, but this definitely isn’t the story I thought I would be writing. In some ways it’s probably a more interesting read when things aren’t going to plan. I’ll continue to write about my Road to Melbourne journey this year, and try to post more frequently. I have no idea where I’ll end up come October but feel free to follow along!
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