I’m not sure I have ever managed to do any sort of strenuous activity 5 times a week, no matter how much fun it is…

Last night was the Eagles summer party and I woke up at 11:45am with a monster hangover. Not a booze hangover (I don’t drink), I went crazy last night on two Fanta’s and a draught lemonade – I need to lay off the hard stuff!

Despite feeling a bit sick and having slumbered away most of the morning for the first time in ages, I was still fully intending to head out for a gentle 5 miles today. Then I looked at what my training plan holds for the coming week.

Tomorrow is the official start of my training plan for the New York City marathon on 6 November. I’m not sure whether I noticed this when I was first handed it, but my coach has me on 5 sessions a week for the next 20 weeks.

I’m not sure I have ever managed to do any sort of strenuous activity 5 times a week, no matter how much fun it is…

There is of course a reason for this many sessions. My first marathon was all about getting round in one piece. This time around I have a target time – I am aiming for under 4:30. Partly because I feel like that’s a really decent time and enough of a challenge without being completely insurmountable, and partly because in all honesty marathon running must be a lot more fun if we’re not out there all bloody day.

Anyway this target means that I need to be able to hold up a race pace of about 10:15 or thereabouts. For Rome, my race pace was supposed to be about 10:45 but on the day was 11:05. So clearly there is a fair amount of progress to be made. My new training plan therefore includes a whole lot more intervals, speed sessions, tempo runs and hill training than the last one had.

Gird your loins, folks, things are getting pretty serious with this running malarkey.

In total, if I manage to stick to all my sessions (which is unlikely, but we can dream) then I will have gone one better than the Proclaimers and covered about 525 miles between now and race day.

I am really excited for New York. I’ve only been there once before and didn’t really make the most of it, so I’m looking forward to actually being in the city that never sleeps again. And the race itself is on my 35^th birthday – how else would I celebrate going up into the V35 age category than by running 26.2 miles?!

So yeah, I decided in was ok to allow myself a bye and have today as a rest day. They are going to be few and far between over the coming months!