Reflections and thoughts for the rest of the year

Reflections of the year so far

The start of August and that is as good as anytime to reflect on the year to date and to focus on the running for the rest of the year. 

The M7 was marathon # 8 for the year with another 10 planned. I expect I will run all those and so finish the year with 152 marathons. Canberra in April with my 3rd marathon for the year and I started with a serious hammy injury and really should not have started ... but it is Canberra and has a special place with me and my return to running and so I started. I finished in 4.25 + and more injured than I started.

I then focused on working towards a full recovery and doing work that would prevent any more hammy issues during the year. I did not run another race for almost 2 months and ran a tough trail marathon at the start of June and had no issues. A week later I ran 3.34 at Kempsey and was certainly fully recovered. 

I continue to do exercises to strengthen the hammy and stretches that were set by the physio. I hope that will keep me injury free for the rest of the year. So far the year since Canberra has gone well with my times be quicker than they have been for the last 2/3 years. A few years ago no matter what I did it was more often that not a finish between 3.50 and squeezing just under 4 hours. This year it has been times generally close to 3.40.

My hope is that the rest of the year will produce more marathons times close to 3.40 and not over 3.45.

Thoughts for the rest of the year

Since the start June I have not done very much structured and seriously hard training. I run most days but either I have just run a marathon or just about to run one so the training to improve is just not able to be done. I am fine with that but it does present a challenge to improve my fitness when there is no or little training being done to achieve that. 

But I will be happy to run most of the marathons planned for this rest of the year in the 3.40/3.45 range. That should indicate that my fitness level is better than it has been in the past couple of years. Also to remain injury free so that running/racing/training can continue without interruption leading up to the only two races that I am focused on GNW hundred miler in mid November and then the monster 240k C2K in early December.

I am using all the marathons as a base to those. Each marathon is important to me and significant that I do well at them. But what I want to really do this year is:

• finish GNW after two years with a start but no finish; and
• run a better time that 44.25 at C2K. 

On that basis I will focus more on training being much more intense but being done smarter. My diet is fine but could and will be improved. My weight is fine but a few k's could come off without a loss of strength. None of these are really needed but I just want to have a daily focus that moves me positively towards the end goals.