Marathon plan

Ok, so I´ve decided that it has to be the marathon. I have to admit that this is down to coming across the web page of the first Murcia marathon and finding out it is being organised by a running club who like their beer. It is also limited to 1500 runners so it´s right up my street.

After last year´s failure to get to the Valencia marathon I am determined to get the preparations for this one right. Patience is the key. Last year I decided to enter a race 8 weeks before the Valencia marathon and that messed up everything. I´ve always made the same mistakes - over-training, bad eating, racing at the wrong time. This year, I´m going to take my build up seriously and with patience

Training has been slow this last couple of weeks. Sticking to my max HR of 135 hasn´t given me much progress and I have to say, I´ve been having doubts about Maffetone´s theory. If it wasn´t for the testimonials to him and my own experience of breaking his rules, I may be trying different things now. But no, I´m sticking with it. The other thing I´m sticking with is the low carb diet, although after some sessions I´ll allow myself to get some good fruit and/or rice down me.

The other key is I´ve got to get my anxiety and stress levels down. I´ve a feeling this is impacting on my running in a much greater way than I realise. However, with a full-time job, two small children and a wife also eating up all her free minutes, I´m not sure how to do this. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

So, how to approach this. The temptation is to go full-on which is why I did my first ever double session yesterday. I don´t think this is the best approach though. I´ve suffered the effects of over-training in the past so I should know better. I think what I will concentrate on is hill-running, aerobic training and barefoot beach running. Now that I´m starting in the morning I reckon I can drag myself out of bed twice a week to do 40 minutes base-training. Then, one evening session can go up to the top of the Castle and back, followed by an LSR going over the mountain to the beach to improve leg and foot strength. I´ll just gradually build up the LSR and slowly increase one of the early morning runs and I reckon that´ll be ok. The race isn´t until November so I reckon this is a sound plan.