Marathon Post #16

_{a Selfie during my Run today after the first 6,5 kilometers}

I am the Storm, brother!

• 22 weeks of training completed
• 20 weeks to go until the marathon in Luzern
• Distance completed last week: 41,2 km

As I was running this morning, this quote popped in my head and stayed with me all the way! The reason why this popped in my head must’ve had 2 reasons, first of all I started rewatching Game of Thrones season 7 last night and one of the last things I watched was Euron Greyjoy attacking his cousins’ fleet. The other reason is that I have the words or product name NikeSTORM on the cap that I was wearing.

I found the quote so inspiring that it motivated me throughout my run today and I really utilised every reason for motivation that I found as this week has had quite a few challenges when it comes to maintaining my momentum and motivation:

First of all, my running buddy and colleague who was going to run Luzern with me injured himself and he found out that he has something inflamed. This means taking rest and starting his training slowly again. I know there still is enough time for him to get back up to speed and he really needs to take his time to recover, but for me this means that I probably will never run with him again during our lunch breaks as I will finish working there at the end of this month … it means many more runs alone and having to stay disciplined with myself.

I really could have used a running partner this week as I felt more sore after my long and record breaking run from last Sunday. Despite feeling good on Monday and Tuesday, when it came to running again on Wednesday I felt sore the moment I did my first step. I had to carry this feeling throughout my runs on Thursday and Friday as well, also because I focussed a lot on cadence and therefor used different muscles. The same happened on my run today, but that feeling disappeared after a few kilometres.

Lastly as I already mentioned due to the soreness I really wanted to have a running partner for a piece of the track today, unfortunately both my neighboors were away so I had to do my run alone and I was dreading the run slightly due to the soreness I’d suffered during my previous runs, but I also had this experience where my head started playing with me a few weeks ago and I can avoid that if I’m distracted by running with someone, otherwise 16 kilometers are very long if your head is working against you. However I ran, I didn’t have that feeling today and I lost the soreness quite early on, so I even added 3 kilometers to ensure I maintain my level.

_{Euron Greyjoy's Quote. Image Source: aminoapps.com}

A great running week altogether and I’m proud of myself how I overcame every hurdle … I am the Storm and there’s no stopping me!!!!. I have 20 weeks left until the marathon in Luzern and if I can remain disciplined and keep the pace I know I’ll be able to finish it and in a good time!

Here is a little run-down of each of my runs since my last running post:

Wednesday 30.5. - Pfäffikon 🇨🇭

• Weather: 24 degrees, with a bit of wind ... hot!
• Distance: 5,03 km
• Time: 25:50 mins
• Pace: 5:08 min/km
• Avg Cadence: 162 spm
• Training Effect: 3,3
• Company: Alone
• Goal: First day of 3 in a row to get used to running on tired legs

Recap

Today was hard, starting the week on tired legs felt like an extreme mountain to overcome, but I manager it and I had a fantastic pace and cadence. Although my max spm was only 175, I managed to maintain the pace and set a good average overall. I feel that since I started focussing on cadence, it is helping my overall speed! Thanks Viktor, but also thanks @cstrimel, @toofasteddie, @nwtdarren & @run.vince.run you guys have convinced me and motivated me to go this way and although I've been a bit stubborn about it, I've made the transit and I'm really happy that I did it.

Thursday 31.5. - Oberwil 🇨🇭

• Weather: 14 degrees and very humid
• Distance: 10,60 km
• Time: 56:53 mins
• Pace: 5:22 min/km
• Avg Cadence: 163 spm
• Training Effect: 4,4
• Company: Alone
• Goal: Second day of 3 in a row and adding distance to increase the tiredness effect

Recap

As it was a bank-holiday today I had the day off from work, so I decided to hit the road early, so that we could do something as a family afterwards. It was still cold and humid due to recent hail storm in the evenings, but this didn't affect me. It was the soreness and maybe a bit tiredness that really worked against me.

I decided to start slow and once I was at a flat lever increase my pace/cadence. I did this and this tactic payed off. Overall it was a fast run and I even managed to push myself to go faster from the 8^th kilometer and my 9^th kilometer was even below the 5 minutes. My max spm was 181, but the average of 163 spm is one of the best I've achieved thus far.

I had 10 km on my schedule, but I decided to jump a few weeks ahead and do my normal round that I usually do with my neighboors, so I ended up doing 10,6 km in total ... despite the soreness, keep going!

Friday 1.6. - Pfäffikon 🇨🇭

• Weather: 20 degrees and very sunny, barely any wind
• Distance: 6,43 km
• Time: 33:36 mins
• Pace: 5:14 min/km
• Avg Cadence: 159 spm
• Training Effect: 3,6
• Company: Alone
• Goal: Third day of 3 in a row and running on tired legs

Recap

I felt sore and I know this is exactly the feeling that I had to get used to, to be able to be successful on the marathon day. So I decided to take it a bit slower, especially since I had to add another kilometer to my normal Friday runs.

The run went at a nice and steady pace and I learnt to bite through the pain and really work to achieve my goals. With a max spm of 166 I was really holding back today and just ensured that I got the distance in my legs, but that is exactly what I feel I have to do when I want to achieve my goal. Overall still a good pace with an average of 5:14 min/km.

Sunday 3.6. - Oberwil 🇨🇭

• Weather: 16 degrees and sunny
• Distance: 19,13 km
• Time: 1:44:06 mins
• Pace: 5:26 min/km
• Avg Cadence: 160 spm
• Training Effect: 4,8
• Company: Alone
• Goal: distance, distance, distance and running on tired legs

Recap

As I said before, my body was struggling in the first kilometers, so I took it easy to get uphill and then increase the pace to something I could maintain. I also decided to take 2 breaks, one after 6,5 kilometers and the second after 13 kilometers. This was once I'd decided to run 19 kilometers, instead of the 16 that I had on my schedule as I felt I had to get used to distances under any circumstances and what better way than when you're tired anyway with little sores.

This run went almost completely to plan, I had to go back on myself once as I'd ran past a turn I had to take and I had to keep thinking "how I could get to 19 kilometers" as I wanted to avoid that initial hill from the beginning by doing the same what I did last week, when I had someone with me. I like the course that I did today as I added some new parts to the 'normal' route that I used to do with my neighboors, but it is also completely different. Below you can see a detailed description of how I achieved the 19 kilometers today:

The fact that I planned my breaks really helped me also to have an intermittent goal and help maintain my pace as I could pick up the pace afterwards and sometimes even increase on that. I am proud of the average spm of 160 which helped set my average min/km at 5:26 over the complete distance and I had a max spm of 182. Fantastic stats and if I can run the marathon in this pace I'll finish it under 4 hours!

Here are my 4 longest runs in comparison with one another:

Conclusion

With 20 weeks to go, I'm now close to running the marathon distance in one week. This was overall a hard week having to do each run alone, sometimes in difficult weather conditions and with sores, but this shows my discipline (or stubornness) and I'm proud of my overall achievement. I have run 15 kilometers more last week than what I used to do before I decided to run a marathon.

Below is the schedule that I'm aiming to stick to, in blue are the weeks that I've completed:

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!steemitworldmap 47.334180 lat 8.386726 long Oberwil-Lieli, Aargau D3SCR