Week Commencing 7th January 2013

First week of proper marathon training unfortunately ruined by a rather heavy night on the beer and wine and missing my Sunday long-run. Not a great start and I'm therefore on an alcohol ban for any day where I'm running the next day...

Monday: 7 miles steady at about 7:10ish although pace varied substantially (7)

Tuesday: 8 miles at MP (6:06mm) on a hilly course - pace variations are from a mixture of hills and me starting relatively easy, struggling to catch the leaders, settling back in and then kicking on (6:44, 6:16, 5:30, 5:53, 6:26, 6:18, 5:58, 5:45) (8)

Wednesday: wu, 4 laps BP (12:50, 12:30, 12:27, 11:56; AVG 12:26 / 7:06mm), wd (9.5)

Thursday: 4 easy at Lunch AM; PM 30 wu @ 7:30mm, 5 laps progressive BP (12:06, 11:15, 10:52, 10:29, 10:00 - AVG:  10:56 / 6:15mm), short wd (18)

Friday: Easy run into work (5.5)

Saturday: Organising XC results all day. Short wu, XC race (horrendous), wd (8)

Sunday: My downfall. Carded a 0. Hopefully won't happen again

Total: 56 miles

A good weeks training until Sunday. Big jump in mileage even if the week's total doesn't really show it (7 day total from Sunday to Saturday was a 73) with a decent amount of faster running. Really pleased and surprised with the Tuesday run which wasn't meant to be that fast at all. Thursday was exactly the right pace (if not that quick) which was good considering the cold conditions and a good introduction to my variety of Thursday sessions planned. 

Saturday was a very poor race - combination of boggy terrain (no energy return), a very busy week at work, limited sleep, heaviest training in a while and having nothing to eat almost all day due to being stressed about organising the results team combined to make me run very poorly. That said it was a great team result for the Chasers who ran superbly as a team to take the match and league lead going into the final fixture.

Unfortunately those factors together with a cross-country race again combined to make me very susceptible at the post-race party and subsequent house warming and Sunday I was in an absolute state all day. Disappointed in myself but its good to get it out of the system at this stage and I can now focus on London. I don't think a total alcohol ban is a good idea but limiting it to the odd beer at dinner with Hayley and only drinking in a group when I'm not running the next day seems a good plan.