Swashbuckler's Marathon Debut?

Great Limerick Marathon 2022 – Daniels 2Q Plan Week 3 – (13-Jan to 19-Jan)

Bit of a meh week this week. One where I was questioning my choice of plan! Is it meant to be this tough on week 3........more on that later....lol

Thursday, Jan 13th

Plan: Easy 120mins or 16M (lesser of the two)

Actual: Easy 120 mins

Shoe: NB Fuelcell TC (a no brainer for this type of run for me)

120 mins Easy running. No bother right? That's my bread and butter almost every week since 2018 - weekly long runs ranging between 12 and 15 miles. Different prospect on tired legs especially after coming off the speed stuff the Monday before. It's funny. I felt reasonably recovered by the Wednesday albeit the calf muscles were a little sore. Its not that this run was very tough but it was just a bit of a mental slog. Aerobically I felt fine throughout. All the miles were in or around 8min/miles. Not by choice, just by how I felt. I tend to not really pay attention to pace on these. Its more in the legs, hamstrings and hips I felt it really. Had me questioning how 26.2 miles would feel at marathon pace! But trust the process etc etc. I took the route out the UL/Vistakon which includes a portion of the route I wouldnt be all that familiar with. Some sneaky pulls and drags out that side of town which surprised me. This was late at night which probably added to the general malaise. All in all it was fine, nothing spectacular but fine. I guess these runs are a lot easier in company. God help me for the 20 milers.

Total: 15 miles, 2hrs

Friday, Jan 14th

Plan: Easy

Actual: Easy 5 miles

As is becoming a common theme with this weekly run I felt leggy.....Although not as leggy as previous weeks which shouldbt be surprising given the fact the previous day was vanilla rather than a session.

Total: 5 miles, 42mins, 8.22min/mile. Nice low HR throughout (128 avg)

Saturday, Jan 15th

Plan: Rest

Actual: Rest

Busy day with the kids - playgrounds and the likes - very enjoyable. One of the few days where they were on top form. Wish I could bottle those days.

Sunday, Jan 16th 

Plan: Easy plus strides

Actual: Easy 8.5 miles including 8x20s Strides, 70mins, 8.16min/mile

Felt great on this one (again seems to be a common theme week on week). Strides felt good. A little higher mileage than previous week as this is a higher mileage week in the plan. Crappy sleep that night and woke Monday morning knowing it was gonna be a long day. Slept a little awkwardly too - was tending to our sleeping buddy in the cosleeper beside the bed. I wont complain. I cherish those moments. Nothing quite like seeing your newborn unsettled and once you hold her hand she drifts back to sleep with your hand against her cheek. Give me lack of sleep any day of the week if thats what I'm awake with.

Monday, Jan 17th

Plan: 6E/2T/2minE/2T/2minE/1T/2E

Actual: 6E/4x1T off 1min/2E (changed vs the plan)

Shoe: Adidas Adios Pro

I knew all day that this was gonna be a struggle. I was tired, creaky, a little sore. Its funny how lack of sleep can compund several other things and all of a sudden it feels like you're completely unfit. I had the session programmed into the watch but contemplated several things.

Should I skip it entirely. Very rarely an option I take so that was a quick no.

Should I just run easy. Ok this was an option and I said I would assess after 6 miles.

Should I shorten the 6 mile warmup. Felt like there wasnt much point as it wouldnt give me much. The threshold reps were always going to be the difficult part and I felt like even on a two mile warmup I would feel the same.

Should I try do as much of it as possible and abandon if necessary. Maybe.

So I took off with the mindset I would decide what to do after 6 miles. Felt meh on the 6 miles. May as well have been wearing flip flops as it didnt feel like the Adios Pro gave me nay physical or mental boost. Got to the end of the 6 miles and did some activations and leg swings to see if I could get some enthusiasm going. Decided at that point I didnt want to attempt two mile threshold reps. Decided to cancel the pre programmed session on the watch and changed it to 5 x 1T off 1 min and see how many reps I'd manage.

Surprisingly when I took off I didnt feel all that terrible. Effort level felt ok although legs were tired.

Long story short I got to the end of the fourth rep and said, alright P call it a day, park it and move on. If I had chanced a fifth rep the legs would have turned to jelly so it was the right call. Live to fight another day.

6E: 8.09/8.18/8.19/8.10/8.17/8.12

4x1T: 6.07/6.15/6.14/6.11 (heart rate on these was bang in the middle of the range so was happy with that at least)

2E: 8.30/8.30

Total: 12.4 miles, 1hr36mins

Tuesday, Jan 18th

Plan: Easy

Actual: Easy 5 miles, 43mins, 8.36min/mile

Covered the watch, hit go and just moved around at whatever felt like recovery. 123bpm avg which tells me it was genuine recovery. I expected this run to be more of a slog. It was fine. Leggy but fine. At this rate I'm tempted to change the title of this log to "Leggy".

Wednesday, Jan 19th

Plan: Easy plus strides

Actual: Easy 7 miles, 58mins, 8.17min/mile

Better than yesterday which is obviously good. Kept it slower than usual and skipped the strides.

_______________________________________________________________________

Planned mileage for the week: 54

Actual mileage for the week: 53

Time on feet: 6hrs 32mins

Miles in the block to date: 154.3

Number of MP miles: 7

Number of Threshold miles: 14

Comments

• Hmm where to start. Its week three and my conclusion is Daniels is hard. There are a few things that stand out that are worth noting, not just for me but maybe for others considering his plans;
  • The two high volume sessions takes getting used to. I expect it suits people who are well conditioned for it but its a bit of a shock to the system for someone jumping in doing that for the first time, regardless of many years of training. Hopefully this is just an adjustment phase for me. I noticed similar when I started up with a new coach last year - different philosophy, different style - had me struggling for a few weeks before adapting.
  • The philosophy is to run lots of easy miles and then pick it up with speedier threshold/5k stuff. If you're not used to that approach it takes a bit of getting used to.
  • I dont really see any obvious down weeks in this plan. With that being said, I think I will be taking the offer from Daniels of changing up or skipping some of those "emboldened" sessions in his plan.
  • I can see how a plan like this would give the right person some big big strength gains. Time will tell if I'm one of those people.

Next weeks sessions;

Q1: 2E/8M/1E/2M/2E (TBD if I take an extra days easy and push this to Friday)

Q2: 40min Easy/3x2T off 2mins/2E (emboldened in the plan so optional to change or take a rest/easy day)

The million dollar question @babacool .

Its not like I have a great alternative backup plan lying in wait so it would probably be a case of sticking with Daniels but scaling it back/messing up his philosophy and praying that gets me to the start and finish line in one piece.

Thanks AMK and D.

I was about to respond the AMK's post but then saw D's post which basically captured what I was about to say.

I don't think its time to jump ship just yet! I just need to shut up complaining and get on with it 😂

There's probably an element of overthinking it a bit in the sense that I expected the first few weeks of marathon training usually has a feeling of "easing into it" whereas this has been anything but. That being said this is a brand new stimulus so the body will like need some adjustment period (spoke with E.coli about this too).

So in summary, i'm not getting too worked up yet. It was only a week ago I was saying I loved what I was doing so I cant let one week change all that. I'll keep truckin' anyway and we'll see how we go. All part of the learning experience.

And as you said AMK, which was something I probably didn't appreciate at the time, 6E + 4 x 1T is pretty decent and something i'd be delighted with if I was just "generally training".

See that's a great suggestion but hindered by another barrier i've created for myself. In as much as possible I want to keep weekends free or at the very least short runs. A three day gap between sessions would have me moving sessions in and our of weekends as the plan progresses.

All part of the work/life/family/running balancing act.

Yeah I get you on Hanson. I guess my point was though, unless you can be absolutely sure you can manage those sessions on the same day every week then its not the kinda plan where you can get away with moving things around. Its simplicity was actually what looked attractive and I could definitely see myself going that route in the future, but only when I know for sure that the days in question will be consistent week on week for the entire block. Ironically i'm three weeks into Daniels and havent had to move anything yet but the day will come soon enough no doubt.

That's some of the pro's and cons of my log. Great interest and inputs which I'm absolutely delighted with personally. The flipside is anyone playing catchup literally needs to read pages of content 😂

Great advice in that post. Thanks for taking the time.