Long Runs 14, 15 and 16

I've been tardy about logging my training here. One inspiring event that occurred last week was my good friend Alokee running a personal best sub-4 hour marathon! Simply incredible stuff! Congrats Kokie and hope to join you in that league in a year or two!

For now, I've been working a bit on my core fitness but nowhere close to the intensity I would have liked to. But being so close to my first full marathon in over 5 years I'm understandably nervous about straining or spraining anything or catching a stitch somewhere. What I have done is religiously keep to my long run schedule.

The last 3 Saturdays have seen me put in a 28K, a 33 K and my last long run yesterday a nice, quick 19K. My longest run of this training plan was last weekend with a 33K. I burnt close to 3,000 calories and was on the road for close to 4 hours. Extremely inefficient use of calories in comparison to distance but there's only one way from here and that's up. Yesterday was fun because I was aiming only for a 20K and I pushed myself hard. I ran 19K at a 7:18 pace which for me is a good 30 seconds faster than my race pace will be.

Right now I feel healthy, my recovery after my almost-half marathon yesterday is excellent. I don't even feel it anymore honestly. This is also the end of my long runs. I'll put in a 12-15K next Saturday and then rest in the lead up to the big day on September 20th. Looking back it's been an exhilarating journey. It started with a 4K run on April 24th. From then till now I've run a total of 11 half-marathon  plus distances which include 6 runs of 30K or more. That's a lot of miles from being completely sedentary and sloth-like 5 months ago. Some of the side effects have been a dramatic change in my diet and approach to food. I've had to discard more than 15 shirts and tees and 3 pants...just too loose. I haven't had a Friday night out in 5 months which has probably saved me some money too! :-)

Now I can just sit back, calm myself and aim to complete the KTM in 6 hours or so.