Here’s the training I did last week – the first week of my marathon training. (January plan in the image below).

A bit more of a focus on strength training than tuning this week. The strength on Monday left me sore until about Saturday, not ideal, but I know it’ll get easier the more I do it. I’m aiming to strength train one main session a week and one short intense session.

The weights were mainly the bar with a small weight on it (18kg), going up to 23 & 28kg for Squats. This is probable what made my legs and glutes sore all week.

Here’s what I did:

Mon: Squat Strength
Tue: Rest
Wed: 40 min interval run (4×4:1:30)
Thu: 7.4M / 1:12 long run
Fri: Rest
Sat: Kettlebell strength
Sun: Rest

2 runs, 2 strength, 3 rest days (6/7 day strength challenge – 1 day rest on the plan). First week of my training plan, and j was sore from strength, so rest will be good for me.

I only did two runs last week, an interval session in Wednesday lunchtime and an easy / long run on Thursday. I was meant to run on Sunday, but I’ll swap my Monday test day for it. So I rested on Sunday, and it’ll be a Fartlek run on Monday morning.

Mon: Fartlek run (45 mins plus wu/ cd)
Tue: 50-55 min easy
Wed: Deadlift Strength
Thu: Intervals / 30 min KB strength
Fri: Rest
Sat: Intervals
Sun: 100 minute / 11 mile Long run

I’m aiming to get up early and get my runs and daily strength challenges out of the way early. Maybe the odd lunchtime run will be good too, as it’s easier to run in the daylight than the dark.

I’m up to 80 squats, 2×45 second planks and 10 press ups in the 30 day strength challenge. It’ll be day 10 on Monday 11th.

My vo2 Max has dropped to 51, so I’m going my run training and intense / cardio strength training will help that (and my fitness) will increase.