Thursday tempo

Tonight saw my final hard session before the marathon.

Every Thursday night (depending on whether I have a race at the weekend) I try to do what is called a "tempo" run. This type of training means that you are pushing your body beyond its usual comfort threshold.

Over the course of my marathon programme my Thursday session has changed and varied somewhat at various stages of my training. My quickest and toughest sessions have seen me running 7 miles at around and about my 10k pace (each time I did this session I went through 10k in under 33 mins).

When training ahead of a weekend race, I tweaked my Thursday run to be a short, sharp 4 miles.

But in the last few sessions I have worked for slightly longer in terms of distance, but at a slightly slower pace - this is to try and accustom my body to running at "marathon pace". Today I had my final tempo session, in which I did 8 miles at 5:55 mpm.

So there we go, another run done - and the back is fine! Tomorrow is a rest day now, as my tapering kicks in. Ten days to go!