Week 6 of London Marathon Training

After a shaky end to the first month of training (oversleeping, aches and pains, general grumbles, legs made of actual lead), I think my body is finally starting to get to grips with the demands made on it. 

Last week I managed my longest ever run to date - 16 miles. Afterwards I was surprisingly okay. I've learned to be much stricter with myself regarding warming down and stretching, and it would seem my body appreciates the effort. I had virtually no leg tiredness or tightness the next day. When I have previously run half marathons my legs protest massively the day after and I slightly hobble. No longer! 

Today I ran 14 miles and it was relatively easy. Of course at times it gets a bit boring (I ran today and last week without music), but physically I was comfortable, not out of breath or experiencing any muscle tightness. I'm not exactly the faster runner in the pack, but I've noticed that hills no longer slow me down quite so much, nor do the last 2 or 3 miles, which I used to run a pretty glacial pace. I can maintain a steady 9.30 - 10.15 minute mile at all times now. I know this is not big whoops to most of you who can run much, much faster, but it's a small victory for me. My half marathon times during my LSD runs on Sunday are now about 2:10. For comparison my actual 1/2 marathon times have been around the 2:18 mark. So...an improvement of sorts.  

My goal is to get my 1/2 marathon time down to as near 2 hours as possible, but I still don't expect to finish the actual marathon much faster than 4:45.