When my name was drawn from the ballot for Gold Coast marathon, it had a strange cosmic feel to it.

It was luck, fate, written in the stars.

I’ve never believed in luck. I was about 22 years old when I got a four leave clover tattooed on my wrist as a reminder to work hard, that luck is preparation meeting opportunity. I’m not that poetic, I’m pretty sure I heard it on Oprah.

So when I opened that email and it was clear that I was in, my first response was “oh shit I have to run a marathon”, followed quickly by “well I’m going to do it properly”. The cosmic aspect seemed grander than simply clicking and entering. I get to do this, lots of other folks aren’t getting the same opportunity, I need to make the most of it.

I went back and reviewed my two previous outings where I had a decent go, 2014 and 2016 to see where I fell apart during the race itself and how I prepared.

Training log

Here’s my week of training.

Monday: Easy 8km, sitting at around 5:45 pace, plus basic plyometrics like hops, drop jumps and frog jumps.

Tuesday: 20k rhythm run. My coach programs these a lot for runnable races to encourage finding a pace and a rhythm and getting used to sticking with it. I was programmed 2 hours, but 20k came first so I stuck with that. I wanted it to be easy, but not too easy so I aimed for 5:50 pace. I threw in a few small hills to push the effort and ran a 5:30k right in the middle just to see if I could. I made sure I fuelled with lollies and tail wind during the effort.

Later in the afternoon, I took my dogs for a walk for an hour.

Wednesday; I went a bit rogue on Wednesday. I had a 1hr hike on the plan (the A goal is Surf Coast century remember) but I didn’t want to do it. I went for an easy 8k and took the dogs for a walk for about 50 minutes. I had plans to do the hike on the treadmill in the afternoon, but I didn’t I went to the physio instead.

The physio was fine, they were confused about why I was there since I’m not injured, except for a lingering glimmer of proximal hamstring tendinitis. He basically said you need to go to the gym. Don’t worry, I’m getting a 150th opinion!

Thursday: long run day. 2.5 hours, sandy coastal trail in preparation for Surf Coast Trail Marathon in a few weeks and the A goal! I got up extra early and headed down to run on the actual course. I was really intentional to run by feel and not look at my watch, I’ve been doing too much of that with trying to focus in on my marathon pace, so I was pleasantly surprised to see I got a PR on a 7k segment on the way back which was the last 7k of my run.

Friday: another easy 8k run around my neighbourhood followed by a walk with the dogs (25 minutes) and some very basic, at home strength work.

Saturday: It’s a pet peeve of mine that training actually works. Usually I have more workout days mid week, Tuesday or Wednesday with the long run on the weekend but work this week flipped that on its head.

The workout was 10 minutes warm up followed by 5x 2 min at 8-9 out of 10 RPE followed by 2 min float.

It was hard but the graph is so satisfying!

After the run, I swapped shoes and jumped on the treadmill for a quite uphill hike. I set it at a basic fast walk and did 3 min at 6%, 7% up to 10% incline. 15 minutes total.

Sunday: Today I had an easy run scheduled which was lucky because work caused some unplanned stress and overtime. I shuffled along for an easy 7k in an area I’d never run before to round out the week.

Totals:

• Run: 80km, 8 hrs 13 min
• Walk: 11km 2 hrs 26 min

Adding in the little things

As part of my hamstring rehab, I’ve been making sure I foam roll and do some basic warm ups before each run.

I’m having a post run protein shake with a scoop of creatine after each run, no matter the distance and having my little supplement bundle (iron, vitamin D and magnesium) every second day.

I’d like to add in more strength work and some hot baths to see if I can get some heat stimulus before race day too. Gold Coast shouldn’t be hot, but it will be warmer than down here in Melbourne so something is better than nothing.

I also have to add some strides in a few times per week.

I listened to a podcast on adding mental fatigue training on top as well. Maybe if I didn’t have a full time job with a 3 hour daily commute, I’d add on sudoku after my runs!

6 weeks to go! See you next week