Getting to the London Marathon Startline

In 2003, I completed my first London Marathon, crossing the line in 2:45:08, feeling well and truly broken. In fact, my training that year had been so haphazard through injury and lack of direction for what to do, I’d even told my parents not to come to watch as I felt I was unlikely to finish. 15 years on and another 10 marathons later, and I feel as though I have finally figured out a build up which works for me. Granted, I’m not a 20 year old anymore and, as a result, my training has had to change as recovery takes longer and my lifestyle has changed, but that hasn’t stopped me from still putting in the necessary sessions whilst remaining in one piece.

With Strava now allowing everyone to see everyone else’s training, I thought I’d summarise my build up, and what I found worked for me. If my preparation comes over as easy, that is by no means the case, and I give everything I have in training. However, for me, I don’t let the London Marathon take over everything from January to April.

Training:

This is split in to sessions and knocking out miles. The only real change in my typical weekly training is focusing on the long run, however this year I have reduced the number of hard sessions in the week.

In previous build ups, I have followed the pattern of:

• Tuesday - quick shorter rep session (5-6 miles)
• Thursday - MP longer rep session (12-14 miles)
• Saturday (maybe race/parkrun)
• Sunday (hard long run 20 miles)

If I can hold this together, then fantastic, however I have only once managed to reach the marathon start line in one piece following this schedule. It is incredibly draining, both energy and timewise, and so I decided to switch to 2-sessions per week, dropping the Thursday threshold:

• Tuesday - quick shorter rep session (5-6 miles)
• Saturday- Long Run (20 miles, undulating off-road. 5:50-6min miling, winding it up at the end to 5:20-5:40)

Plenty of sessions around Battersea Park with these guys

Having 3 days between each session meant I was sufficiently rested to push these hard every time. The Tuesday sessions gave top end speed, whilst the Saturday sessions gave speed endurance. My longest run was 24 miles (I don’t feel it necessary to go over distance), and I did 5 long runs averaging 20 miles (the last of which was March 11th, which was probably a little earlier than normal, but I was ill in late March so had to skip the last long run).
In between these, I was just steady running to/from work or at lunchtimes (6:15-30 miling, quicker than most may do, but it’s the easiest way to fit in the distance when time pushed).
Total distance wise, I had a few weeks at 90+ miles, but most were 65-75 miles on average per week.

Racing:

Sprinting for 23rd place at National Cross

I like to race, and essentially it’s what drives me to train, however I’ve now realised that you can do to much of it. I took the decision this year to compete infrequently, but to race hard and target a big event for each month in the build up. I chose Southern XC (January. 15km cross country, big strength test), National XC (February. 12km cross country, another strength test and high quality field), Valencia Half Marathon (March. World Champs race, very good depth, indicator for where I was long-run wise), National 12-stage (week before, sharpener).


In preparation for each of these, I did a shorter/quicker session on the Tuesday before (something like 4*1 mile), then no long run that week and an easier/no session the Tuesday after. I was therefore well rested going into each, and gave myself enough time to recover afterwards. In fact, after Valencia, I had 2 weeks of easy running given I felt so tired/slightly ill. However I was not phased at all as I felt that missing a long run/session here and there was going to make no difference to the end goal.

Other things:

I feel that putting in the miles and hard sessions makes up for almost 100% of the work required. My opinions on nutrition, lifestyle and sleep may not be shared by all and potentially some may say that there are marginal gains to be had there, but equally I don’t like to let running rule everything.

Nutrition:

In terms of diet, mine is by no means textbook: cereal for breakfast, sandwiches/crisps for lunch, meat/veg/pasta/potatoes for dinner. I’ll snack on cereal bars/chocolate/fruit and love jam sandwiches. Whilst I don’t booze too much, I’m still happy to have a couple of glasses of wine in the week and beers at the weekends. But my opinion is that as long as energy in equals energy out and I’m relatively healthy, that’s fine.

Pre-race breakfast. Simple

Sleep:

I try to get 8 hours sleep a night, but realistically it’s more like 7.

Strength training: 

I’ll admit, as much as I would like to, I do no strength work. This is quite contrary to what I have been doing for years where I would routinely do sit-ups/press-ups/lunges etc. 3 times a week, but with no motivation to do that at home nor finding a reasonably priced and convenient gym, that is one thing that has slipped this year. I may have been fortunate with avoiding injury this year, but I do think a couple of 30 minutes strength sessions a week is worth it.

Footwear:

I managed to get myself a pair of Nike Vaporflys for the London Marathon which are quite frankly amazing. They are very different from anything I’ve ever worn before and are by far the most expensive piece of running apparel I have, but feel so soft, bouncy and quick that they are totally worth it. The hype certainly got me. A week on from the marathon and my legs feel the best they ever have, and potentially the shoes contributed to that.

Next to follow is a post about the London Marathon day itself, but hopefully this provides an insight into how I built up to the race.

Valencia Half Marathon and Spanish Sun

2 years ago, I raced in the mass start of the World Half Marathon Championships in Cardiff, and thought it was a fantastic event. When someone told me the 2018 equivalent was to be held in Valencia, I jumped at the chance to to participate. Timing wise it worked perfectly, both in preparation for the London Marathon (4 weeks out), and a Saturday evening race meant the chance to be able to check out the city the following day.

The location for the race was at the the ‘City of Arts and Sciences’: a very impressive building and backdrop for the start. There were about 150 elite men and 120 elite women making up the IAAF World Champs Race, followed by 12,500 runners in the the mass participation race.

The course was pancake flat and only had a few corners, so on paper it looked fast. However the winds on the day were just ridiculously strong, which meant I’d prepared myself to tactically tuck in at times. On the plus side, the wind direction and route of the course meant that we would at least have a tailwind on the way back.

As with any big city race, we were required to warm up quite significantly before the gun, however what made this race slightly different is that the mass participation race was held back 30-40m behind the IAAF race. Whilst I fully appreciate that IAAF race needed a bit of space at the start, I certainly was not prepared for it to be quite that much! The gun went, and I’m sure that Geoffrey Kamworo led the field out at some crazy pace. Meanwhile, 40m back was a full-on tussle for a good position on the road, and also many of the mass start participants trying to latch onto the World Champs race (myself included).

I was tracking Johnny Thewlis and Jonny Cornish, and we rapidly moved through the field before settling down into a group running at just over 5 minute miles. Given the size of the group (about 20 runners), it was quite easy to tuck in. We went through 5k in about 15:45 and I was feeling comfortable, and then through 10k in just under 32 minutes. The group had shrunk quite significantly by this point and I found it very important to close down splits when the stronger runners went off the front, as we were still into a head wind at this point.

Shortly after, the course turned back towards the start/finish and it felt like the pace surged. I found myself at the front of the pack, was feeling good and happy to push on.

By this point I was checking my watch at each kilometre marker, as I knew it was going to be very tight to make my sub-67 target. I went through 18k in 57 something, went through 19k in 60 something, and got to 20k in about 63:30. My 5k split from 15k to 20k was 16:00, a relative stroll compared to the race winners 13:01! I tried to find an extra few seconds, but I’d hit top speed, and when I got to 400m to go, I needed to finish within about 70 seconds. Not even a gale force wind could push me fast enough, and I eventually crosses the line in 67:06. Slightly frustrating not to break 67, but equally a 2 second pb is still a pb, and gives plenty of confidence ahead of London.

Jack (1:35), Anna (1:35), myself (1:07), Chris (1:08)

Whilst I finished 12th in the mass race, I actually finished about 120th overall, just was the strength of the IAAF race, and that I felt made it such a unique event. Very rarely do you get the opportunity to race with that much depth, and so I have already pencilled in for Gdynia (Poland) in 2020.

Now I’m looking ahead to London and have very little preparation left to do: 1-2 more long runs, a few shorter sessions, 12-stage and a taper. 4 weeks to go......