Gold Coast halfmarathon training – update

As you are probably aware, I am busy training for the Gold Coast marathon festival on the first July weekend…4 weeks to go. It’s a great family event which we look forward to every year. My husband and daughter will run the kids’ 2 km distance and I will start for the half-marathon (21.1 km).

This year I set myself a structured training schedule which I have been following successfully so far. Only today I completed a 20 km run in just over an hour which went really well. Fingers crossed too that I have not had any injuries and pain so far.

I have also slightly updated my training plan for the last three weeks of training:

• I can feel how my legs are getting stronger each week, so I am trying to be more efficient with my time and energy. Instead of running one 5km and one 6km run each, I combined the two and I am doing one 11km fast run.
• I needed some variety in my hills run…it does get very boring when you speed up the same hill for the 3rd time. I am still doing a 30 min hill run each week on the steep hills in the bushland behind our house, but I added some sprints and surges. I joined the ASICS Pace Academy challenge which comes with my Runkeeper app. Basically the run starts off with a warm up and then changes between 30 s sprints followed by 2 min recovery runs. Each session is customised to my baseline stats and includes audio cues to keep me on speed. I have been really enjoying this built in feature and I can see how I am getting faster in my sprints which is a great feeling.

Here is my updated training plan for the remaining three weeks:

Week 6	Week 7	Week 8	Week 9
11km run fast	11km run fast	11km run fast	Rest, eat and rest (perhaps a massage :-))
rest	rest	rest
30min hill run and surges	30min hill run and surges	30min hill run and surges
15min yoga	15min yoga	15min yoga
22km run steady	22km run steady	22km run steady
rest	rest	rest	Gold Coast Halfmarathon

 

I have also started paying more attention to my food and liquid intake:

• I started making my own homemade electrolytes. MommyPotamus has a great recipe.
• I started tracking my daily liquid intake of at least 2 l. It’s a dry winter over here in Queensland and sometimes it’s easy to forget to drink enough.
• I stocked up on bananas and dried apricots. The later are good for muscle cramps.
• I have a magnesium drink every day.

Have you ever completed a larger run like a halfmarathon? What are your preparation tips?