The Road to the London Marathon: 9 Weeks to Go

[purplecat]

Saturday and Sunday saw the last two runs from "Easy" week. The first asked for five 90 second hill runs. The absence of convenient hills has already been noted here, but I did wonder, even in hillier locations, what sort of terrain would make five 90 second hill runs possible. Mr sophievdennis suggested running up and down a multi-storey carpark, but I opted for five interval runs instead with a minute's recovery time between each. The second was a 50 minute long run, which coming in at 8.5km hardly seems worth the name "long".

I was disturbed that, after a trouble free week, my ankle was hurting again after both these runs. After some thought it occurred to me that I was running in my cheap shoes again (having accidentally left my expensive shoes at my mothers). I ran in an old pair of expensive shoes on Monday (40 minutes easy) and my ankle was fine. I then brought my spare pair of expensive trainers back from work and ran in them on Wednesday (10 minutes easy, 15 minutes threshold, 2 minutes easy, 15 minutes threshold, 10 minutes easy - I didn't hold the threshold pace very well in part because of ice) and this morning (10 minutes easy, 10 minutes threshold, 5 minutes easy, 10 minutes steady, 10 minutes easy). My ankle continues fine. Since I think it is a stability muscle that is causing trouble I'm wondering if the cheap trainers have subtley uneven soles or something that's causing the ankle to have to work harder - of course, I've not really done enough trials to be sure its the trainers (rather than just an intermittently dodgy ankle) but I'm not really enthusiastic to want to run an experiment involving a shoe that may be injuring my ankle.

KM run this week: 38.4km
KM run in 2018: 221.2

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While raising money for charity is not my motivation for participation, it is a big part of the London Marathon. Shelter have bribed me with a T-shirt and the promise of a post-race massage. People have been incredibly generous already, but you can donate here should you feel so inclined.

Comments

[liadt]

Sounds like it's time for the shoes to 'retire' to the bin!

[purplecat]

Quite probably - though I'm still not 100% sure they are a culprit. We'll see if the problem reoccurs this week at all with the expensive shoes.

[fififolle]

How many hills will the London Marathon have..? If there is a significant elevation anywhere, might be worth travelling to mimic that, but I can't imagine London Marathon will have any significant elevation, interesting if it does.

[purplecat]

Well, I'll admit I've not checked, but I can't imagine it will be that hilly... *does a quick Google* "The good news for London Marathon runners is that the course is pretty flat, starting with a gentle downhill section and only climbing a few feet in a couple of places." That sounds nice - apparently the biggest problem is people going too fast on the downhill at the start and wearing themselves out.

[fififolle]

That's good news, and forewarned is forearmed :D