John McLaughlin’s Marathon Training

Well, today I received my London marathon magazine, unfortunately I didn’t manage to get in with a ballot place, there are other ways to get a place – but I have decided to leave it for 2010 and try applying for a ballot place in 2011.

So what’s the plan for 2010, well, I have entered the Edinburgh Marathon, the Edinburgh Half Marathon and will be entering the Wycombe Half Marathon, so as long as I can keep myself injury free, it should be a good 2010.

So let the chaos begin

Well, it is all over – and despite my knee injury I managed to finish in just over 5 hours, I’m not sure exactly how long it took me as I forgot to stop my stopwatch!  The official results are meant to be on the website today, so I can find out then.  The good news is it is now my marathon personal best

I got to the start at about 8.30 and said goodbye to Helen and Rory, and then joined the 1000’s of other runners (13500 marathoin runners and 1000 relay runners), I eventually found my starting pen and did some light stretching while waiting for the start of the marathon – the sun was already rather hot.

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Well, todays the day, this is what all my training has been for.  I have to be honest and say I let my nerves get the better of me last night and I havent had the best nights sleep!

If it wasnt for my knee injury, then everything would have been fine, I’ve put in the miles so I know I can do this, I also know its not going to be a walk in the park – but my knee is concerning me.  The funny thing is it doesnt hurt, it never has, only when I’m running, I have done the strecthing routine that the physio gave me almost 2 weeks ago, Helen has been massaging my legs and I havent done any running- but because my knee is only sore when running, I have no idea if the streches and massage has helped and that is why I am so nervous about this.

Having said that, I am really looking forward to 9am when the marathon starts, I am going to be taking as much ibruprofen and paracetamol that I can, and then I’m just going to enjoy the race, if I make it to the 10 mile marker with litle or no pain then everything should be fine and I’ll be hoping to finish in 3hr45, ideally I want to be faster than this as my dad ran the London Marathon in 3hr45 a few years ago and if I dont beat his time, I will never hear the end of it, in my favour however I am running with an injury (just in case I havent mentioned that!!)

The weather is sunny and I think it is going to be another hot day today, so plenty of sunscreen and  I’ll be making good use of the fluid stations!

Well, I think that is going to be it for now, it’s now time for a light breakfast, then it is just a case of getting ready and heading down to the start line.  (To be continued..)

• Training Type: Slow 18miles (Actual 6.28miles)
• Time Taken: 00:54:27
• Calories: 779C
• Avg Heart Rate: 175bpm (I think I have a HRM problem)
• Avg Pace: 08:40min/mile
• Weather: Sunny
• Running Shoes: The black ones

Well, I did actually go for this run on Sunday, but as you can probably tell from the fact that I only managed 6.28miles, it didn’t quite go according to plan.  It turns out that the 20mile run I did in the wrong shoes has caused me more of a problem than I first realised.  All started well, but after 5 miles, the pain in my knee, just to the outside of the knee at the back, was hurting a lot, I managed to walk and run for just over another mile, but no matter what I tried the pain wouldn’t go away – I could do nothing other than phone home for a lift.

While, I was walking to the pick up point I had arranged with Helen, my knee was stiff too start with, but the longer I walked for the better it seemed to get, then while I was stood waiting, my knee felt as good as new, until I tried to run, then it hurt – a lot.

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• Training Type: Steady 9miles
• Time Taken: 01:19:01
• Calories: 1103C
• Avg Heart Rate: 159bpm
• Avg Pace: 08:46 min/mile
• Weather: Overcast, but warm
• Running Shoes: The black ones

I think my Garmin maybe playing up, when I went to start my workout today, there was no workout showing, even though I know there should have been as I modified my training plan and sync’ed my watch last night.  Oh well, I’ll have to wait and see if Sundays session shows up.  In the meantime I manually configured a 9mile run and just ran at a comfortable pace.

All was fine until about 3 miles in when the muscle that runs down the outside back of my right knee started to hurt, it had been hurting on Sunday afternoon, but then seemed to go away, but now it is back, I ran another 1/2 mile then decided to head home, I didn’t want to go any further in case things got worse, I slowly headed for home, but on the way back, things seemed to get better, so I took the decision to carry on with my session, but closer to home, that way it wouldn’t be too far to walk if I needed to.

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