Well, week 9 ended with a bit of an incident, much like last week’s did, but not as such running related! So if you happen to have read my blog last week ( see here https://aquavista.me/2019/09/09/well-you-couldnt-make-this-up/ ) as regards ‘keygate’ then you won’t (or maybe you will!) believe what happened to me this weekend!!! More further down……..:O.

Meantime, back to the running…..

When I looked originally at the 16 week training programme for the New York Marathon – see post here https://aquavista.me/2019/07/15/and-so-it-begins/ I remember immediately thinking “shit, September is going to be horrible”. Specifically focussing on weeks 9 – 13, there was looming five consecutive weeks of around 45 miles per week, with long runs at the weekend of 20 miles plus. Well here we are, it has arrived!

This week was 44 miles, and had a 20 miler at the end of it too. But it isn’t just the big runs, the midweek ones are getting longer and harder too. Earlier in the schedule the three consecutive midweek runs were all four or five miles each, and now this week they were 6, 8 and 6. Next week it is 7, 9 and 7, so just from a time commitment alone point of view this is getting very serious indeed.

I started this week on tired legs too, and with a very tired mind and body full stop, after last week’s exertions at the Great North Run, which culminated in a 1,300 mile drive due to the above mentioned ‘keygate’ where I lost my car and house keys, presumably (as I suppose I will never actually know) somewhere in the North Sea.

Tuesday’s run was a fartlek of 6 miles, and after a 5:30 wake up call (I have to do these things before getting ready for work, just compounding the tiredness) it became my first long sleeves outing of the campaign. The weather this week has certainly seen autumn begin to land (and then disappear again!), and me actually consider putting the heating on in my house too! The fartlek was fairly uneventful in the end, and by its very nature fairly unstructured, so that enabled me to ease back in gently. I did however have a bit of a twinge in my right calf, which was a bit worrying. It had niggled me at about mile 4 of the GNR on Sunday, but had gone away again. I managed to run it off, but it reminded me of at least the need to stretch diligently before and after every run.

On Wednesday there was a progression run. I love progression runs! Maybe that makes me weird, I don’t know! It was 8 miles, and for me that meant starting at around 9:55 pace, and upping the pace each mile by 15 seconds or so, I ended up finishing my last mile at around 7:45 or so, and felt really good, helped admittedly by a bit of a tailwind at the end :).

Thursday was a 6 miler including 10 x 400m fast (7:30 pace or so, or that was what the programme said!), and it was definitely hard, particularly in the middle section. Friday’s rest day was a very welcome part of the week, and I rewarded myself with a beer or three on Thursday night – well you have to try to live a little in the midst of all of this don’t you :).

At the weekend (home for the first weekend in a month, and very grateful therefore that Melanie came to mine this weekend), Saturday’s prelude to Sunday was a nice gentle four mile run in glorious sunshine. It was so easy and relaxed, and it went so well that it made me think that all runs should be this way. We also chatted on the way round about possibly getting into trail running at some point when this marathon is done and dusted, but that’s all for another day……

So onto Sunday’s 20 miler. Melanie was sporting a new knee support after some (bad) chafing issues with her old set, and that seemed to work fine overall. The day was hot, and we got in a lovely route in and around the River Thames in Abingdon. Everything was fine overall, although I struggled for the second half (and the last few miles in particular). We had a (ahem..) toilet break courtesy of a timely/well placed Waitrose store at about the 10 mile point, and after that my legs felt heavy and breathing was harder, and I could feel my pulse rising commensurately. By mile 20 I was pretty much just surviving and couldn’t wait to get to the finish, and then it happened……

Upon getting back home I went straight to my secret place in the garden to retrieve my house key. I always leave it in the same place when I’m out for a run in case it falls out of my pocket when retrieving a gel or the like. And it wasn’t there! After some scrabbling around and pulling said flowerpot apart it still couldn’t be found, and so Melanie (assuming naturally that I was having a ‘man look’) took over to try to retrieve it too. Sure enough, it wasn’t there! I looked then everywhere wondering if I’d put it somewhere else, but to no avail. I also realised that I had no spare key available to me in my other secret place, as I hadn’t returned it after losing my other set of keys the week before!!

After considering bricks and sledgehammers for a while (neither of which I had to hand either it has to be said, or otherwise they may have got a look in) I realised that the bedroom window upstairs was open. I didn’t have any ladders, but after a visit to my kindly neighbours and borrowing a set, I managed to climb up into the window and get inside and unlock the door from within. Where on earth I left the key is and will perhaps remain a mystery for all time. I made the statement to Melanie (because it is true) that I have never lost a set of keys before in my life, and here I am having lost a set in consecutive weeks. So as the headline above reads, you couldn’t make this up!! I really felt so stupid, and still can’t even fathom what I did with the key. Maybe it will turn up one day in the unlikeliest of places when I am doing the garden – who knows.

So, onto Week 10! Week 10 is a mere 42 miles, with just a 15 miler this weekend (although 5 of those at race pace), but we have 23 miles to do over the next three days which is going to be a real test. I have a bit of an achy foot too to boot, but hopefully that will ease. The next 3 weeks after this are harder still, but am not getting ahead of myself yet – one week, or one day, at a time! The exciting reality though is that at the end of the next four weeks we start to taper, and the marathon is less than 7 weeks away now. The time will no doubt fly by, and if it wasn’t very real already, then it gets even more real by the minute.

Hopefully I will have no more lost keys to report next week, but as Melanie reminded me afterwards, things often happen in threes! Until then………..:)