London Marathon Training Week 3 - got a PR!

Saturday was the first of 3 "tune-up" races, a 5k (3.1 miles) race in Regents Park.  

Week 3

I ran a personal best (PB) or personal record (PR) of 31:17! Woohoo! I had a single three-pronged strategy: 

• go as fast as I could
• have negative splits
• finish as close to 30 min as possible.

It's not much of a strategy, to be honest.  I did go as fast as I could. I got a stitch in my right ribs toward the end. I got some negative split: my second mile was faster than my first mile, and my third mile was slower than my second but faster than my first. And 31 minutes and change...that's close enough to 30 minutes. I won or, as Coach Clare declared, "you bossed it!" I actually quite surprised myself. 

Week 3 was kind of a mini-taper. No cycling at all, just the easy running I've been doing the previous two weeks. The new thing was the race instead of the 90 min long run. Coach Clare suggested I do a 16 minute warm-up ahead of the race. I've seen others do that and I tend to think, why waste all my energy on warm-up? But actually after doing a little research, and having experienced that, I can see what the point is. 

First, done right it doesn't waste energy - it helps you get into the right mind space and is a reminder of what fast legs feel like. You don't start from the line with cold legs. I've read that if you do this pre-race warm-up too early then you doing gain the benefit of doing it, because that benefit doesn't last long.  I picked a sweet spot about 30 minutes before the race, which I knew would give me enough time to do that and hit the toilets. Anxiety-pee, or (sing it with me, Mel!) "it's my High Anxie-Pee!"

It was funny to hear the race announcers saying "save your legs, you don't need to run before you cross the start line" which, actually, is counter to this whole think of getting your legs moving and warm. Although, there was an organized calisthenics warm-up session in the field before the race. 

I love Regents Park. It's beautiful and it is where the majority of my running took place when we first moved to London - we lived one street away, and the Outer Circle is almost exactly 5k. The race criss-crossed inside the park, where there are undulating paths, football and rugby pitches, ponds, bridges, a university, tennis courts, formal and informal gardens, an open air theater, and a zoo. Every year there is the Frieze outdoor sculpture exhibit, which we missed last year due to October lockdown. I love all of it.