It might be less than a week since I ran a Marathon, but it feels like a very long time since my last run. A sense of impatience has been building, which though something you have to be wary of giving into, can be viewed as a good sign provided you maintain control and don’t rush your return. It’s a good sign because it suggests that your physical recovery is going well (albeit you never really know how well until the first run), but it’s an even better sign in terms of mentality.
Preparing for and running a Marathon is a major endeavour, and doesn’t necessarily encourage you to continue running. I went through that after setting my PB in 2016 – I even considered concentrating on shorter distances in the future, and it was more than four months until I really committed to running regularly again. But today I’m looking forward to the new running challenges that lie ahead in 2021, and hopefully can maintain that feeling through the training blocks which I have planned.
But that is for 2021. I have a Marathon scheduled for Easter Sunday (and will probably do a solo Marathon on that date even if the event I’ve signed up for is postponed/cancelled), followed by the Race to the Tower Ultra on 5th June. That’s quite a short turnaround, and whilst I’m certainly not going to be aiming for a fast time during the Marathon (currently the plan is to try to reach the finish with as much kept in reserve as possible), it means that my Spring will be very busy. There’s a balance that always needs to be struck between giving yourself enough time to prepare and not burning out (either mentally or physically) before you reach the event, and January feels like the right time to start my training block for the Marathon. If I started now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the intensity in the training when I need it most, the period between 8 weeks out and 4 weeks out when I would normally look to complete the longest of my training runs.
All that being said, I’d still like to start that training block in the best shape possible. But I don’t want to focus on things like speed and distance over the next few weeks, because that mindset can be draining, particularly if progress is not as fast as you might hope.
Instead, I want to focus on having fun. I haven’t done much off-road running in recent weeks, nor have I spent much time exploring new routes. I’ve done a lot of similar types of run, and it would be nice to rectify that with some more variety. And the good news is that a varied training programme is great for building all-round running fitness, which should hopefully help me start the next training block in good shape without being a slave to the data.
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