A good day for 3 of the runners I work with today – which is always nice (especially in marathons). So much can go wrong, they really are very hard things to get right. Aside from the length of time it takes to train – stay fit enough and healthy enough to build a decent level of confidence in what you can do – the day of the race itself can fall apart on some many small things.
Getting pacing, fuelling and the mental battle all right are hugely commendable and far harder in execution than in practice. For 2 runners to both PR on the same day, one a BQ time (however it remains to be seen if this will be low enough) is a good day in my book. I’m immensely proud of both runners and very pleased for them. For both these guys it’s the second marathon within the year that they’ve run with me – and I believe that you need to have at least 1 marathon training block under your belt before you can start finessing and fine-tuning what you need to do. I’m hopeful that the third, for both of them will be even better. But, like the sea, the marathon is a cruel mistress and nothing can be taken for granted. Consistency will be key as both go forwards. That is in the future and today is a day to celebrate.
At the other end of the scale another runner put up a strong 10k performance, stronger than I expected and something he was more than pleased with. This a good result of solid work – what remains challenging now is bouncing between running a 5k / half marathon / marathon and then back to a 10k in the space of 3 months. Different athlete, different training, different focus, nice to see similar results.
BreatheToMove 