Dublin Marathon: 10 Weeks to Go - A Rocky Fitness

Week 2 of my marathon training was a humbling one. As I type this blog to start week 3, I am stiff as a board. I wish I could tell you that it was because of an extraordinary effort for my long run over the weekend. That is not the case.

I got a 7k run in last Monday to start the week. What was once a recovery lap around the area has now become an absolute struggle. Running at a 6 min plus km pace, I felt the extra 3kg I have put on in the last few months. I felt slow. I felt heavy. I felt like I might not make what was once routine.

And that’s the great/awful thing about fitness. It’s all rented. It’s not like once you have done a marathon at a certain pace, you will always have the ability to do that like it’s a level on a video game.

I feel like Rocky Balboa having lost it all and starting over. Wait, that’s starting to describe Rocky V, by far the worst of the first five Rocky movies. Although every time I think of the premise, I still think it SHOULD be a good movie - and if it was anything like this alternative editing of the final fight, it would have been.

Now that I have of course rewatched that clip, back to the training.

Another 8k run followed on Wednesday evening. And, while I felt a little more comfortable running, I didn’t feel like I could push beyond the 6 min pace, even if I wanted to.

And I know I’m being hypocritical here. If this was someone I was coaching, I would be telling them to ease into their training. Not to do too much and not to overly push in the first few weeks back running.

Thankfully, I listened to myself on my run yesterday. I had done a quick cardio workout in the gym on Friday evening consisting of 4 rounds of ski erg, sled and assault bike at 30 seconds on, 30 seconds recovery. I found it pretty tough but was not expecting to be as sore as I was on Sunday morning! But, despite feeling stiff, I headed to my favourite place in the world to run… Phoenix Park. And I suffered.

What was meant to be at least a 12km run was cut short to 10 km. I struggled to maintain pace, was passed a good few times by fellow runners and the 60 mins felt like it took forever to run. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the running. And delighted to be back at it. But it’s going to be a long road back to where I was. And that realisation came crashing down this morning at 5 am when I attempted to get up for work. I had that stiffness that usually a first session back doing squats after months away would bring.

My ego is damaged that a 10k has done that when I ran 100k only a few months ago. Thankfully, I didn’t run any further or the pain could have been worse.

It’s humbling to be as far back in my fitness this time of year but the journey back to the starting line of the marathon is going to make it all worthwhile.

Most mileage I’ve done in quite a while!

In other training.

The pull-ups are progressing nicely. Having failed to try to do 6 pull-ups, on the minute every minute, after minute 9, I managed to do 3 reps every 30 seconds for 41 minutes and hit 250 pull ups.

EMOMs are definitely the way to go if reps are the main goal. On this occasion, breaking it down to reps every 30 seconds, stopped me from getting fatigued as quickly. That last rep on each set was a struggle very quickly when doing the EMOM.

Speaking of struggle… there’s yoga to be done!