Tag Archives: How to train for a marathon

Summer training & races to come

Posted in Running by

Well hello there! It’s been a while since I properly posted a training update – or anything for that matter – so here goes!

I’ve had a little break but I’ve since been quietly working away, trying to improve my running and strength and slowly build back up towards marathon training.

long run

I’m running the York Marathon in October which will be my 5th marathon! York was actually my first marathon as well so I’m super excited to go back and run it again. Not only that, but it’s home turf so I’m hoping the family (including my 1-year-old niece!) can all come and cheer me on which would be amazing.

Aside from that, York is flat – yipeeee! My current marathon PB is at 3.25, which I achieved in London earlier this year. I’m not expecting to beat that at York but what I am aiming for is a strong finish. My goal is to be able to run that last 10k as strongly as I ran the first 10k. I realise I’m not going to be finishing the race as gazelle like as when I started it, but I want to be able to maintain a consistent speed, without seeing those mile splits climb.

So basically, that’s what I’m training towards. As always I’m doing my three gym sessions a week. This is made up of 2 strength sessions and a third focusing more on conditioning rather than lifting big numbers – I do love a bro sesh though as demonstrated below, ha!

strength 1

At the minute I’m running three times a week. Before anyone tells me that you need to be running every day to run a marathon, you definitely don’t need to. For me, it’s about getting in the quality sessions and finding out what works for me. I’ve tried running 6 days a week and for me, that just doesn’t work – particularly for my mental health! If you want me to do a post on training for a marathon on three runs a week – just let me know by commenting below or Tweeting me (@hannahbryan91).

speed session

This week I did a speed session on Tuesday, an easy run on Wednesday and a long run on Friday. I’ve got one more gym session to do (my conditioning one), which I’ll do tomorrow (Sunday). This might increase as the marathon nears but this depends on a number of factors i.e. time and my body! I’m currently getting some help with my nutrition which I’m hoping is going to benefit my performance and aid recovery so I might end up running more within the next few months, but I’m going to tell you more about the nutrition side of things in a different post!

easy run

Here’s a list of what I’ve got coming up:

August – Askern 10 miler
September – Great North Run
October – York Marathon, Sheffield 10k
November – exciting challenge to be announced soon!

I’ll try and get some other races in but at the minute that’s what I’ve got booked in.

The only other thing to mention is that I decided not to accept my Good For Age place for London next year. I hope I don’t regret it! My plan is to focus on Boston – providing I get a place! If I don’t get a place…then the Great Wall Marathon is on my list…!

That’s all for now training wise, I’ll keep you updated as the marathon nears. I’m ready to work hard for this one!

🙂

Race review: Nottingham 10 mile road race

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Woah, it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged – apologies for that! I’m back now though and thought I’d share a race review from the Nottingham 10 mile road race with you.
nottingham 10 mile race
I ran this on a very wet Friday evening last week. Luckily the sun did come out for most of it though!

The race kicked off from Nottingham’s National Watersports Centre at 7pm. I got there at about 6.15pm and parking was super easy. It was a short walk to the registration area and luckily we could wait inside before going to the start line. There was no defined start line but it was pretty easy to figure it out – I just followed the other runners!

The course is essentially two-and-a-half laps around the lake. I was worried the route would be boring but it really wasn’t at all! If you need a huge crowd when you race then I wouldn’t recommend this, although where people were watching they did some great cheering!

I didn’t have a plan going into the race; in fact I didn’t actually want to do it at all after a long week at work – and it was chucking it down! I decided to just make sure I ran under 1.15 and use it as a great training run.

I felt strong the whole way round and came in at 1.13 – happy with that 🙂

There’s no medal at the end which I was gutted about as I love a good medal haha. When you pay to enter (I think it was around £20 maybe) you can also pay for a finishers t-shirt though.

Every finisher also gets a goodie bag which had a mug and a banana in.

All in all, this was an enjoyable race and I’d recommend it to anyone who lives near Nottingham. A great way to spend a Friday night!

My next race was supposed to be Sunday however I’m now going to be watching the athletics in Birmingham which I’m incredibly excited for!

Training is going well though and I’ll have a full blog post on what I’m up to and what I’m training for at the moment up at the weekend!

🙂

My week in training 29 Feb – 6 March

Posted in Fitness & well-being by

my week in training

Monday:
Rest day! If I do a long run on a Sunday I’ll usually always have Monday as a rest day. Sunday’s run was a mix of fast paces for 14miles in the lovely Yorkshire sunshine. My legs felt fine on Monday but it’s always nice to have a sleep in rather than a 5.30am gym start isn’t it!?

Tuesday:
I trained at the gym this morning and got to try out my new lifters! They were an absolute bargain by the way, £29 from £90 – how could I resist!
At the minute, I lift twice a week minimum and follow a programme which changes every three weeks. On each three week programme, the sets and reps change every week but the session remains the same. Today’s session was made up of back squats, front foot elevated split squats and single leg deadlifts, with some supersets, core, calf and glute work thrown in, too. This was actually one of the best sessions I’d had in ages, legs felt strong and I had a lot of energy.
The energy was still there after work which was good as I had a run planned. I  had to do a 10k made up of 5mins at 10k pace with 1 minute recovery jogs in between. I finished in 43minutes and 21 seconds which I was thrilled with after a heavy strength session.

Wednesday:
Another early morning gym session, this time made up of sumo deadlifts, bench press, bent over rows, step ups and then a serious booty blaster, but more on that in another blog post! I was literally shaking afterwards – what a sesh! My second breakfast was definitely needed after that!

Thursday:
Track Thursday this evening! Headed back to the gym to do my speed session which was a mix of paces held for either 2 minutes, 1 minute or 30 seconds, with the rest periods getting shorter each time. I was sweatttyyyy afterwards and beyond ready for my dinner but it was a good session although in all honesty I probably didn’t work as hard as I could’ve done.

Friday:
Rest day! Woohooo! I started work at 7.30am this morning so no early gym session. I also had a long run planned for Saturday and a friend from uni coming over so my workout was basically cleaning the house quickly before she arrived!

Friday night dinner & drinks!

Friday night dinner & drinks!

Saturday:
After a delicious meal out on Friday, my friend Liv (who is also training for London) and I got up to run out to the peaks. Huge bowls of porridge later and backpacks (well, for me) at the ready and we were off. Well, I think it’s safe to say we experienced every weather possible on this run from snow at mile 3 to wind rain, sunshine and finally hailstones at mile 15! 16.63 miles later and we were done. The route was stunning and even though I thought I was actually going to get trench foot from the mud and water at one point, I felt like I was Bear Grylls’ sidekick! Check out these  pictures below!

peaks 1 peaks 2

Sunday:
My legs felt fine and I floated the idea of an easy paced run or going to the gym but in all honesty I think I was still drunk from the night before!! Had a fantastic night out on Saturday with Liv and my friend Hannah with a solid 3 hours of dancing and plenty of drinks. It’s alllll about balance…so here’s a picture of Sunday brunch at my favourite spot in Sheffield.

Sunday brunch

Ready to take on next week now! Only 7 weeks to go…!

🙂

Raising money for Breast Cancer Care UK

Posted in Running by

blog 1

A slightly different post today but it’s a pretty important one! As you’ve probably guessed from the title, I’ve decided to do some fundraising.

I’m currently training for April’s London Marathon and have decided to support a charity in the process. London will be my fourth marathon after I was lucky enough to secure myself a good for age place thanks to my performance in the Manchester marathon last year. I’m so excited to tick off another of the marathon world major’s and be part of such an iconic race.

virgin-money-london-marathon

It was quite difficult choosing a charity to raise money for as there are so many amazing causes and organisations out there. However, the choice was made easy when my dad suggested raising money for Breast Cancer Care UK.

BCCare

My dad has worked in the breast cancer field for over 30 years now and has helped thousands of women. He also did his PhD research on breast cancer while he was training in Australia, so needless to say it’s a cause close to his heart.

Every year, approximately 55,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer. Breast Cancer Care is there to provide help and support to each and every one of those women, including their friends and family.

The money I hope to raise while training for the London Marathon will help Breast Cancer Care to provide vital support services including running their helpline and online forum.

Breast Cancer Care also provides information points in hospitals as well as face to face services for anyone with breast cancer, as well as their family and friends.

Training for a marathon isn’t easy and even though this will be my fourth, in my opinion the training doesn’t get any easier! I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love it though, and I’m prepared to make the necessary sacrifices over the next four months in order to get my training done so that I can put in a good performance and hopefully raise lots of money in the process!

My dad has given so much through his work and I’d love it if I could give something back through my fundraising and running.

I’d be so grateful for any donation, even if it’s just £1! To borrow the popular Tesco phrase, every little helps!

If you’d like to donate I’d be forever grateful and it’s safe to say that it’s going to a fantastic cause. Please visit www.virginmoneygiving.com/HannahsHappyPace to donate.

I promise to train hard and run as fast as I can on April 24! If you live in London/will be there on marathon day, please look out for me and give me a big cheer! 😀

As always, you can follow my marathon journey here on Hannah’s Happy Pace, or on Instagram or Twitter.

Thank you,
Hannah

🙂