A belated welcome to the new year to you all! I trust it is everything you hoped it would be.
Given my absence from this blog for the past three months (nothing dramatic - just having a break), I owe you an update with my running. In a word, progress could probably best be described as ‘steady’.
I’m just starting week 6 of the 12-week training program for the New York half marathon, which is set down for Sunday 20 March. The first five weeks went well with most sessions completed happily and without injury. I ran a scheduled 5K time trial at a disappointing time of 25:21 at the end of week 3 (was hoping for at least a sub-25) but have a second one coming up at the end of this week where I’ll be looking to redeem myself. I did miss a few sessions while on an interstate road trip and didn’t finish a couple of others owing to some fatigue problems, but in the main, it’s steady as she goes.
In the period between the Melbourne half marathon (on 18 October) and the start of the New York program (27 December), the running was quite light and interrupted by several travel-related absences. For the record, the mileage for that ten weeks averaged just on 12.7K per week, with the weekly kilometre readings as follows - 15, 25, nil, 8.1, 23.01, 24.4, nil, 16.3, 14.7 and nil. Amongst that was another 5K time trial on 27 November - resulting in a time of 25:53.
Since then, the totals have increased reasonably significantly - 32.26, 41.45, 27.92, 16.70 (the week of the road trip), and 34.51. And with no more breaks planned until I fly out of Sydney on the afternoon of 16 March, I’m expecting to continue to record some solid distances.
And finally for this instalment, a recap of where we’ve come and where we’re going in the quest to qualify for the Boston marathon. In short, I’d pin-pointed 13 races (11 half marathons and 2 marathons) as a prelude to making an assault on the BQ at the Gold Coast Marathon in July 2019. My BQ time then will be 3:40.
So far, I’ve completed two of these races - the Sydney (May 2015) and Melbourne (October 2015) half marathons - in times of 2:00:26 and 2:18:04 respectively. I forfeited the third scheduled half marathon at the Gold Coast in July 2015 due to a torn left hamstring sustained in the couple of days before the event, while the Melbourne race almost went the same way after a left calf muscle tear a couple of weeks prior. But I recovered sufficiently on that one to be able to trot around the circuit behind the 2:20 pacers.
The rest of the half marathon and marathon program, to be interspersed with the annual 14K City to Surf and some other miscellaneous shorter events, is:
3. New York (USA) - 20 March 2016
4. Gold Coast - 3 July 2016
5. Auckland (New Zealand) - 30 October 2016
6. Hobart - January 2017
7. Sydney - May 2017
8. Gold Coast - July 2017
9. Great North Run (England) - September 2017
10. Hobart - January 2018
11. Gold Coast Marathon - July 2018
12. Melbourne Marathon - October 2018
13. Gold Coast Marathon (BQ attempt) - July 2019
It’s a tough schedule to try and meet an even tougher target, but I’m still as positive - and realistic - about it as I was at the beginning of this journey. At the moment though, it’s simply a matter of taking one session at a time, trusting in the process, keeping the faith - and, of course, continuing to be accountable to all you out there! Go well.
