4 weeks to go…… One more week in Doha, one week in the UK, then 2 weeks in Australia to get over my jet-lag and taper before the big 42K.

It is also ‘run every day’ month and I have decided to incorporate the spirit of this trend to really blast my training in the remaining few weeks.

 

MONDAY

4 miles rolling hills on the Treadmill with a max incline of 5%.

TUESDAY

3.1 miles (5K) on the treadmill at a fast-ish pace.

WEDNESDAY – Double Day

AM

4.36 mile run from work to the hotel.

PM

Treadmill intervals: 10 min warm up then 3 x 1 mile at marathon pace, followed by a 2 min cool off. Then 1/2 mile easy run off.

THURSDAY

2 miles on the Treadmill, 9:32min/mile average pace.

FRIDAY – Club Run Day

9.5 miles in 1:43:44 – easy 1.6K warm up, 10K at 6:20min/K, 3K run/walk back to hotel.

SATURDAY – Podcast Run

5 miles on the Treadmill, ran further than intended.

SUNDAY – Long Run Day

22K with running buds.

TOTAL MILEAGE FOR THE WEEK: 46

So it has been a fantastic week, my total mileage is an impressive 46 and despite the fact that I have been running every day for 11 days, I am feeling fit and niggle free.

This is surprising as the weather at the beginning of the week was pretty foul – humidity in the 80% region and I thought I would be blogging about how awful the weather is. I thought I would have to rely on hardcore everyday running to get in the miles for confidence at Marysville. Plus I have been on nights, which always fucks with my running routines.

Just Not The Case

The treadmill sessions were not nearly as terrible as I thought they would be, think I may have finally found the right music to listen to. I also noticed that if I try to run s-l-o-w on the treadmill, it fucks with my running efficiency and is more energy costing than if I run closer to 10K and marathon paces. For brief moments, I feel like I can not only complete Marysville, but kill it, this of course spawns a terrifying daymare that only a true introvert would understand. But more on that later.

Club Run Leader

Friday was particularly good fun, I ended up leading the NSF group for a second week and even threw in a curve ball of a new 5K loop. We had a relatively small number of runners, maybe 2/3 the usual size but everyone was game to try something a bit different. I had posted the route on the facebook group but not many had had a look at it, so when we all headed off, I found myself out front for a while.

Recurring Nightmare

I have this day-mare in which I find myself at the Marysville marathon, approaching the finish line and in front, in 1st place (I suspect this will not happen, but it could as my race projections are not far off of the top 5 times from last year). As I approach the finish line I find myself slowing down, in disbelief that this is indeed happening. I’m not a leader, I’m a mid-packer. I don’t belong there, in some versions I spend the entire trophy ceremony double checking my run data, in others I actually refuse to cross the line, convinced I must have cut a corner.

This is of course bollocks – given the sniff of a decent competitive moment, I will attack with a scary gusto. But the horror still sits at the back of my mind and being out front, briefly on our club run gave me flashes of that. Luckily, I was overtaken pretty quickly after that, although I had to stay fairly near the front to shepherd my runners around the ‘unknown’ part of the route. I had fun.

Sunday

Ahh. Long run day. The weather has finally turned in Qatar. Yes it is still quite hot, but the humidity has dropped off and the wind has picked up which has bringing in almost perfect running conditions. Three of us met up in the evening to run a route I have been looking at for a couple of weeks. There is a cycle track, set away from the road, which runs alongside the expressway to Hamad International airport. It starts where the expressway intersects the road that runs along the Corniche and goes all the way out to the airport the airport turn off. From there, people can either take the underpass, under the expressway, to the airport or continue on the path they are on, which goes for another few k’s on the F road towards Al Wakrah.

Now, the reason this path exists is a bit of a mystery. It may be part of a bigger infrastructure project aimed at generally improving the roadways and pedestrian paths in Qatar – but this is speculation. For the time being, there is a lightly used but well made traffic free cycle/pedestrian path where one can clock up a good 20 – 30k’s in relative safety. As a running course, it works well, the only real problem is that there are no shops or water stations (there are these vending machines along the Corniche) so you have to carry ALL your fluids with you, in fact that was our problem last night, after 20 K’s of running, we had all emptied our Camelbaks. Still, this is only remotely dangerous as up until now, the idea of getting to 20K before needing to refill our drinks has been an impossible dream.

We are going to run here again next Saturday, although we want to run further, maybe 25-30K. I am thinking of running them out to the airport and back. The airport run – one way – is about 15K and there are shops in the terminal to buy fluids, so we could run 30K with a nice rest half way through while we walk into the airport, to resupply. Which will be weird and fun.

Fantastic

So, feeling pretty fantastic about the running at the moment. My legs feel pretty good today, so I am thinking of running 10K instead of 5 later. I have a week of day shifts ahead, so my running will be either early morning or late evening, and then I say goodbye to Doha for a few weeks.

I am very close to my antipodean Spring marathon now, how are you doing? Any races coming up soonish?