Belated marathon training update

If you saw my post yesterday you'll know that one of my aunties died over the weekend. While I'm doing okay I'm not really in a storytelling mood. So to honour how I actually feel, I'm not going to put on a smiley face and tell you the next chapter in my ultra-marathon journey because to do so would feel disingenuous.

I imagine I'll feel like storytelling again soon enough. I do love my adventures in long-distance running and they're fun to tell... when I'm in the mood to do so. For now, I'm feeling reflective and introverted, and I'm okay with that.

But I do want to share my progress towards the marathon training goal with you because staying accountable feels good and helpful. And I love connecting with you all around our running goals.

So, this week... I think I did okay. Am I going to be marathon ready by early July in time for the Gold Coast Marathon? Unlikely. But am I doing what I actually set out to do - implement what I have learned in the Born to Run 2 book? Yes. So, that's the bigger goal here. When I run a marathon or any ultra-marathon again will come when I have a strong, well-functioning body and that's the key thing here.

Steps-wise, here are the totals my Garmin watch recorded:

Monday = 5,438
Tuesday = 12,179
Wednesday = 10,312
Thursday = 11,837
Friday = 6,766
Saturday = 15,778
Sunday = 11,000 exactly!

I was, until just last week, also sending all this (step count) data to a Qantas Wellbeing App to accumulate Qantas (Frequent Flyer) Points. I'd been doing this for about two years. Every single day. But after booking a single, short, one-way flight home to see my family and using all the points I'd accrued to do that, I realised the amount of time, effort and attention it required weren't worth the result.

So I took it off my phone. And I'm glad I did. I'm still adjusting to not having to update it every night but it won't take long before I forget it ever existed.

Walks recorded as their own activities:

Tuesday: 1km in the bush.

Wednesday: 1.66km around the block (on streets).

Sunday: 2.4km partly on streets, partly on bike path, partly on grass behind people's houses that back onto the bush, partly on bush trails.

I'm sure I probably did a walk (stroll) with Brad every afternoon as well. I just didn't bother recording them but they're reflected in my step count.

Running:

Tuesday: 1.6km in 13:50, in the bush, 176 average cadence, 144 average heart rate.

(Notes: Arguably I was in Ovulatory Phase but slipping into Luteal (Phase). The former allows me to work harder and it feels easier. The latter means I slow down into something resembling a freight train).

Thurday: 2.5km in 20:46, in the bush, 174 av. cadence, 150 av HR.

(Notes: My graphs are interesting for this. For the first ten minutes my cadence was happily sitting around 185 spm and my heart rate around 140 bpm. In the second half of the run, I was clearly working harder: cadence dropped to 170 ish and my heart rate climbed to 155 ish.

This tells me I'm now able to comfortably do my target cadence for about ten minutes and that's my limit. While it doesn't sound like much I think this is actually a huge improvement on where I was when I started this project to change my run form back at the beginning of the year when 180 cadence felt hard from the very first moment I tried it).

Saturday: 5km at parkrun with a friend, mostly flat concrete path and boardwalks, in 29:12. My average cadence was 178 spm and average heart rate was 146 bpm.

(Notes: Keeping my cadence high is easy when I run with this friend. She is short and so her cadence is naturally high. She really wanted to run the whole way, so I just stayed with her to do that. In the very high humidity it was hard work but I think I did okay. Heart rate was higher than I would have liked but if I'd been on my own I would have dropped the pace from the 5:52 average we did to more like 6:30. All in all it was good to see that I could do 5km and still maintain the higher cadence. Though how hard my body had to work may have something to do with why I woke up with a head cold this morning...)

Strength and conditioning:

While not recorded, I did continue to do bits and pieces of exercises from the Born to Run 2 book, plus yoga, core work, etc just to keep looking after the body.

My aunt dying over the weekend after years and years of her body functioning so poorly that she hasn't been able to walk or drive or cook for herself or dance or do anything even close to a fun adventure for so long reminds me that I don't just want to live a long time, I want to be healthy and move well, function well, live well for a long time.

So here's to us taking care of these precious things we call bodies that are our one and only home for this entire life.

{All photos taken by me during the abovementioned walks or runs.}

(After you comment and/or upvote this post :P) if you want to read the previous posts in this marathon training series go to my profile and scroll through looking for the ones that say "Marathon training update" in the title somewhere. The very first one was on the 1st or 2nd of January.