I’ve had my eye on Canalathon for a couple of years but it’s always been passed over in favour of a bigger goal close to the date but this time I’m going to take on the 50k before London.
Canalthon 50k does sound pretty boring – it’s literally 50k along a canal – but I think it might actually be a nice pre-London marathon training run where I can properly test my fitness and possibly challenge for a decent position at the same time.
I’ve been working hard to get my weekly mileage up to 65-70 this year and I’m just about comfortable handling that along with a decent quality 20 miler for my long run. I’m finding it difficult though to combine the stresses of higher mileage with adding in the quality work Pfitz requires (LT pace tempo runs and marathon pace sections in the long runs) I’m taking a pragmatic position and getting the base mileage done first and will add on what I can.
It’s also pretty dull training for a road marathon – all those specific long runs on flat roads where possible to mimic London’s lack of elevation change are tedious but with the Grizzly in early march (20 miles of brutal hills, cliffs and mud) and now Canalathon 50k 2 weeks later there’s something to look towards over the next few weeks of pounding out the miles.
Not much going on this week beyond having to split a couple of MLR days into doubles simply due to lack of time to do them in one go but nice to get nearly 70 miles done this week and a decent effort of 20 miles at 6:56/mi pace. I hope the remaining weeks of training and adrenaline can somehow help boost that pace down to 6:15/mi though – I’m comfortable at that pace for a reasonable distance but could do with a couple of confidence boosting longer runs with it integrated at some point.
Still, plenty of time and I’m really excited about Canalathon – I think I can run somewhere around 3:50 for 50k and while that’s not going to win the race it should be a reasonably competitive time I hope. It’s nice to plan for a couple of races to take the focus from London for a bit.
- Monday – 5.5 miles
- Tuesday – 10 miles
- Wednesday – 14.1 miles (8.6 & 5.5)
- Thursday – 6 miles
- Friday – 12.4 miles (6.6 & 5.8)
- Saturday – 20 miles
- Sunday – Rest day
Total – 68.2 miles / 4,941ft elevation