I was woken early by the kittens who wanted to play fetch, but as I intended to use the railway path for my Thursday threshold intervals I bimbled around a bit at home before heading out so that most of the commuters will already have moved through. This meant I had time to read my coach’s email reassuring me that I shouldn’t worry about missing my marathon pace towards the end of my long run on Sunday as I ‘hit it for the most part on a hilly route and on a warm day off the back of some hard training weeks’. It amuses me that he thinks the route I have been using for my long runs is hilly as it’s the flattest bit of Bristol I could find without doing lots of little loops (I found a message in my Garmin Connect notifications this morning suggesting I find a flatter route after the previous week’s long run, but honestly, that’s the flattest one I can find, the elevation gain was only 132m which is nothing in Bristol).

Anyway, back to the railway path for some threshold intervals under glorious blue skies. It was almost the same session as last week, except the recovery was 60s rather than 90s. Last week my 4 reps of 8 minutes at threshold pace (aka heart rate zone 4) came out at 4:44, 4:44, 4:46 and 4:41 min/km. This week, off a shorter recovery (but not having raced a 5k two days previously), they were 4:36, 4:29, 4:29 and 4:19 min/km. Much better and I am much happier with the difference between that and my marathon pace (4:55 min/km). It gives me much more confidence with 17 days to go.

The rain had just started to fall when I left the house for my threshold interval session, but I couldn’t wait for it to stop as I knew the cats’ new climbing tree was due for delivery soon and I had to fit in the session and get back before it arrived.

It was only light rain anyway, and it came and went throughout the session which was 4 reps of 8 minutes at threshold effort. It felt like quite a relaxed set of efforts, even though I was bumping up against the upper edge of the heart rate zone, and the reps were pretty consistent too. I had accidentally left auto-lap on after Aztec, set to 1km splits, which confused the watch as it also had each 8 minute rep and 90s recovery down as laps as well.

A little bit of maths and my average pace for each rep came out at 4:44, 4:44, 4:46 and 4:41 min/km. I’ll take that kind of consistency, and the fact that it’s a little bit faster than my marathon pace (which is 4:55 min/km) but it felt comfortable, even in the rain.

Today could have been a very tough long run. It was scheduled to be the longest I have attempted in training to date, lasting 2 hours and 45 minutes. It was going to have the longest amount of marathon pace in it (75 minutes). It was also taking place on Mother’s Day (my mother died in 2008) and on what would have been my father’s birthday (the 7th anniversary of his death is next Friday).

As it turned out it was one of my more enjoyable long runs. It felt better than last week’s long run, which was shorter with less marathon pace in it. My full marathon playlist hadn’t copied over to my ipod, but the tunes that were repeating were good ones. It was lovely and sunny, but not too windy for a change. Best of all I kept seeing people I knew along the way. First it was Robbie and Mark just after the Staple Hill tunnel, then a regular parkrunner (sans his ubiquitous German Shepherd) as we waited on opposite sides of the road for the lights at Warmley. On the way back I crossed paths with Helen just before I tackled a cattle grid and a nasty hill, then just before I hit the Fishponds fish there were Martha and Daryl (Daryl riding the support bike while Martha ran).

It was great to see so many familiar faces whilst out on another solitary long run. Not too long now until I can see them more regularly back at my usual training sessions. Only two more proper long runs to go.

It is less than 5 weeks to go now (eek!) and recovery runs are a thing of the past. Instead I get a full day off on a Monday (with stretching), so my first run of the week is 20 minutes of threshold effort out and back along the railway path.

A gloriously sunny day for it today, though still a little bit nippy, so it called for sunglasses plus buff to cover all of the bases. I didn’t give it full welly, sticking to the middle of the heart rate zone rather than bashing up against the limit, which meant it still felt comfortable coming off of Sunday’s long run. We are now approaching the full maranoia zone of attempting to stave off all possible injuries and illnesses.