Week 16 Marathon Training Thoughts

Forgot to get a “16” picture so this one of me happy to have run in a vest in the sunshine will do!

Hey team! Thank you to those of you have reached out to chat about my blog or tell me their thoughts on what I said – it means a lot that you take the time to read it, and it’s nice to feel like I am connecting with people for all different reasons! I know there are people who read this blog who aren’t running, but have taken a couple of things to think about from my musings and that makes me happy!

I have had another good week of running! Yay!! I am slowly managing to build volume up – still doing intervals but the walk sections aren’t that long but they do make a difference to my achilles’ ability to keep going. Three weeks to go to Rome marathon…! here are my thoughts from this week.

Unnecessary and unhelpful comments from strangers… how to take them!

On Tuesday, as I was doing my run, a lorry driver shouted out the window to me “You’ll damage your knees running!” Quite a lot of thoughts ran through my head in response to that (I ignored him outwardly). 1) “Wow, what an unhelpful comment!”. 2) “Why did he feel the need to comment?” 3) “What did he expect me to do, stop and thank him for the advice and to no longer run?!” 4) “He doesn’t know who I am, what I might be going through, the reason I am running, and he still thought it appropriate to shout out the window at me”. THEN I flipped it. I started to think “Maybe he was jealous”. “His comment and his reason for shouting it at me is clearly a problem HE has”. This reminded me of a video I saw recently (watch it here) on Instagram about an amazing football coach teaching a group of youth footballers about how if someone says something negative to or about you, it is THEM that has the problem, so you need to let it go otherwise their negative energy will affect you. I loved this video and thought it was a great message to be teaching kids, but we as adults often need reminding of this too. Perhaps someone has made a negative comment about you entering a marathon, your training times, the distances you’re running, why you train, the fact that you do CrossFit, the fact that you don’t do CrossFit, whether or not you are taking part in the CrossFit open… etc… firstly, I really hope nobody HAS done this, but if they have - it’s THEM that has the problem.

So going back to my lorry driver example. Running potentially could be “bad” for knees if you don’t do strength training (which thankfully I do), if you overtrain (I don’t), wear the wrong footwear (see next paragraph), etc but if done properly, has been shown to strengthen joints, is great for mental health, helps build muscle strength, endurance, fitness, and is a good way to get fresh air. Plus, sitting in a lorry for hours on end isn’t exactly good for your back either. ;)

Footwear matters!! (An excuse for me to talk about my new shoes)

I am basically at the stage now where I’m throwing money at the problem (my achilles) and doing anything I can to help me get to that start line in rome and as far into the race as possible! So I started researching what type of running shoe can help alleviate the strain on achilles tendonitis. I found that my thoughts were right and that I should get a shoe with a higher heel drop. My achilles problems started after running a 10km in shoes with a 5mm heel drop – which may be great for some people but clearly my body needed more. The ones I have been running in recently whilst improving have been an 8mm heel drop, and google told me 10-12mm would help even more. So obviously that was a nice excuse to buy some new shoes. ;) I had a look at a few different shoes and settled on the Brooks Ghost 17s. I tried them on Tuesday for the first time and they honestly were probably the best first run I’ve had in a new pair of shoes (yay!). They were really comfy, springy, and I love the colourway too. It’s so hard to find a running shoe that suits your running – but the great thing is that a lot of running brands now offer a window where if you don’t like them to run in you can send them back for a full refund, meaning you get a chance to actually try them out. Thankfully I don’t need that with these and they are definitely going to be my shoe for Rome. So thanks Brooks!

Love my new shoes!

Look how far you’ve come!

I had a chat with one of my running clients recently about how amazing it is that their current “recovery run” distance was their “long run” distance not that long ago! It’s very easy to forget to step back and look at the bigger picture when you’re bogged down in mileage and long runs and fitting it all in. But hopefully you keep a training diary - if you don’t, I recommend doing so, and at the very least, look back on strava. If you look back say 6-8 weeks or at the beginning of your programme and see the distances you were running then, that should give you a little confidence boost at how you have improved and what your body can tolerate now that it couldn’t not that long ago! It’s important to take a second to appreciate the wins and the progress and what you have achieved so far. Unless you’re in my position where your longest run was actually 3 months ago hahaha ;) But still, I keep reminding myself that at Christmas, the furthest I was able to run was 1km and that was as run – walk intervals! I have done well building up my volume since then!! This stopping to look at the bigger picture can be applied to anything in life too – not just running!

Wearing this t-shirt on my “long run” today for motivation and to remind myself of a longer run I managed to do in the past!

Hope you all have a great week and, remember, if you’re finding it tough at the minute with all the many miles you’re running, taper will be coming soon….