John McLaughlin’s Marathon Training

• Training Type: Slow 8miles
• Time Taken: 01:08:24
• Calories: 991C
• Avg Heart Rate: 166bpm
• Avg Pace: 8.33 min/mile
• Weather: overcast but warm
• Running Shoes: The blue ones

Well, not much to report about todays run, it was a nice comfortable run, no dramas.  In fact that is pretty much it!!

I did manage to watch some of the London marathon on sunday after my 19mile run, and I must say I have watched it many times in the past, but never really appreciated how much effort the elite runners are putting in, now that I actually know how much effort it takes to run at 8.33min/mile, I can only imagine how much effort it takes to run at 5.23 min/mile which is roughly what the lead ladies were running at.

Anyway, I have my name in the ballot for the 2010 Virgin London Marathon, as it is my first time applying for entry I’m not expecting to get in, but there is no harm in trying.

My next run is on saturday an Easy 4miles and then a Slow 19miles on sunday, hopefully it will be less eventful than last sundays!!

• Training Type: Slow 19miles (actual 18.54miles)
• Time Taken: 02:57:44
• Calories: 2277 (I think !)
• Avg Heart Rate: 166bpm
• Avg Pace: 9.38min/mile (approx)
• Weather: warm and sunny
• Running Shoes: The black ones

If some of the above data seems a little vague, I apologise, and I’ll explain why shortly.  Firstly the run, on the whole was a good one, but it could have been a whole lot better.  They always say that if you are going to try new things when running then make sure you do so on training runs in case of any ill effects, I now know why.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, my stomach wasn’t feeling too good, and after a very quick dash to the toilet, I realised why.  I wont go into anymore details, but needles to say my stomach had been well and truly flushed out.

Eventually I got dressed and started my run, all was going very until about mile 8, when my stomach started to play up again, by this point I was very close to Portobello prom, and I knew there were several public toilets.  I got to the first set of toilets, they were still locked, never mind there is one of those automatic toilets you have to pay for a little further down the prom, but when I got it, it was cleaning and I didn’t have the right change, not to worry according to the tourist signpost there were more public toilets further along the prom, I got to the end of the prom and no sign of the third set of toilets!!

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• Training Type: Steady 10miles
• Time Taken: 01:27:37
• Calories: 1228
• Avg Heart Rate: 193bpm (faulty readings – again!)
• Avg Pace: 08:45 min/mile
• Weather: warm
• Running Shoes: The black ones.

To say I didn’t want to go for my run this morning, would be an understatement.  After dinner last night, I felt very tired, so decided to have a power nap on the sofa, for an hour, this was not a good idea.  When I finally went to bed, I still felt awake, I then proceeded to see every hour until my alarm went off at 5.30am, as I had hardly slept, I didn’t think running 10 miles would be a good idea, as I now felt very tired.

Anyway I got up with intention of having an early breakfast and then go for my run, when Helen and Rory left the house, but once I was up, I seemed to go into autopilot, before I knew it I’m dressed and heading out the door, at 6:15am.

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• Training Type: Slow Half Marathon (actual 11.82miles)
• Time Taken: 01:46:09
• Calories: 1440C
• Avg Heart Rate: 159bpm
• Avg Pace: 08:58 min/mile
• Weather: crisp and frosty
• Running Shoes: The blue ones

Its funny, but 4 weeks ago, I was about to embark on my first run of 13miles, I was alittle bit worried about it having never run that far in one go before, then a couple of weeks ago, I ran my first half marathon, this training session should have just been a repeat of the half marathon run, but I think that was were I made the mistake!

This training session was meant to be another half marathon distance run, but as you can see fom the stats above I only managed 11.82miles, and believe me, if I had been closer to home, I would happily have stopped before then.  About 6 miles into my run my legs were hurting, alot, and my stomach was rumbling, I had literally run out of energy, despite having now run several sessions over 13 miles, I left the house with just a 500ml bottle of water, not even energy drink and the night before, I had only eaten a pizza around 6pm, that was never going to be enough to keep me running 13miles, and the worst thing is, I should have known that.  When I got home I started trying to work out why the run had gone so horribly wrong, then I realised, it was all down to carelessness.

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• Training Type: Slow 17miles (actual 15.96miles)
• Time Taken: 02:27:00
• Calories: 1960C
• Avg Heart Rate: 164bpm
• Avg Pace: 09:12 min/mile
• Weather: drizzle
• Running Shoes: The black ones

Well my training has taken a little bit of a bashing over the past couple of weeks, with me having to skip some of my sessions for what ever reasons.  However I have been keeping up with my long runs, so I’m fairly happy with that.

I was away visiting my parents over the easter weekend, so I had to plan some new running routes, my training session was meant to be a slow 17miles, but I only managed just under 16miles, the route I planned according to google was 16miles, and I then planned to just run past my parents house for another half mile and then run back again.  However I came across a problem!

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