London Marathon Training - Week 3 - Done!

So here I am at the end of my third week of training. And once again, overall I've enjoyed it. This week was a step back week in the plan, my long run being a comparatively short 5 miles. As we had an extra day off work this week I took the opportunity to mix up my days a bit and fit in some extra cross training. More of that later

Monday was a beautiful sunny day in London so I decided to go out and do the 4 mile run which was in my plan for Wednesday. I decided to run a different route and head through Wapping to Tower Bridge. I have run this way once before when I was training for the Great South Run and had forgotten about the cobbled streets and frequent kerbs to negotiate. I spent most of my time concentrating on where I was putting my feet but really enjoyed the run all the same. Hard not to when you get rewarded with a view like this at the halfway point

Tuesday became a non-running day but I went to a Glow Yoga class in the morning before work. The warm studio with it's SAD lighting is such a lovely place to start your day. I really do enjoy these classes.

On Wednesday I did an interval session before work. I used my Audio Fuel download again but upped the fastest interval to 180. I found this more challenging than before but actually really enjoyed the session. It was good to mix things up and run at different speeds. I really don't enjoy getting up to go out and run in the dark, but I left it late enough that the sun was coming up as I got home and was rewarded with this view for my efforts

On Thursday morning I had an appointment with my osteopath. It's still early days for my orthotics but the combination of them and my new trainers seem to be helping, the pain in my calves has lessened which is good. However, my calves are very tight and so he spent most of the session doing deep tissue massage on that area. Painful doesn't even being to describe it but my legs felt lighter afterwards.

On Thursday afternoon I went to a Powerplates session at Good Vibes, the same studio where I do Glow Yoga. I use this as part of my strength training - it's a brilliant 25min workout that targets all your main muscle groups. I followed this up with another Glow Yoga session, this time one especially for runners and cyclists. It was a challenging, fast moving session but we got into some brilliant stretches for areas that are often a problem in runners - hip flexors and hamstrings for example. One of my favourite poses is pigeon as shown in the picture below

Difficult to get into and very challenging for anyone with tight hip flexors but as you sit in the pose you can feel things loosening up. My flexibility is not particularly great and going to these classes will really help me develop in that area I'm sure.

On Friday morning I got up early again to do another 3 mile session. My legs felt tired so I took is slowly and ran easy. On my way home I was once again rewarded with a brilliant view of the sun coming up over the City

Saturday was a well earned rest day and today I have been out to do my 5 miles. I was very tired after a disturbed night's sleep and really didn't feel in the mood for it at all today. But out I went and it was OK, a bit of a slog but it's done.

Next week the mileage climbs again, 9 miles next Sunday which will be the furthest I've run since the Great South Run in October. My running club starts up again on Tuesday and I'm looking forward to that too. Bring on week 4!

Mileage this week = 15.2 miles

Total mileage so far = 46.2 miles