After a decent solo Half marathon on 14th August when I learnt that a group of BHUKMP runners is planning to run the Goa River Marathon(12th Dec) I signed up for a FM in the race without much hesitation. There being no update on TMM (even as of today) this provided a goal event to focus the training and try and improve the timing from the solo FM of May. Started the formal training in early September with a version of the RLRF plan with a goal of a sub 4:10 marathon at a pace of 5:55/Km. I replaced alternate interval runs with some hill workouts till week 9. Also not doing the cross training cycling work outs as prescribed in the plan. Instead I cycle 25-30Km outdoors 1-2 times per week at avg speed of 16-17Km/hr and cycle indoor for 45-60m once a week at similar speed.
Toyed with the idea of switching to a 9 or 10 days training cycle (more about this in a future post) to get more recovery days . However moved back to the 7 days cycle due to interruption in my training between 21st Sept and early Oct due to a personal situation. With a decent 32K run followed by another 30K and some 200m hill repeats and a 10K tempo run at 5:30 pace in week 9 of training things looks reasonably on track right now. While the right ankle feels stressed (and continues to be weaker than the left ankle) at the end of a hard interval or tempo or a long run workout thankfully the extended pain and swelling seems to have pretty much(hopefully) disappeared. Plan to pretty much stick to the plan now for the 3 runs with 3 32K+s remaining. Will convert the last of them on Nov 21st to a 35K run. Need to decide whether I should do that in my usual route or join the group running in KTM on that day. Will decide in early November.
