10 Weeks Until the Midnight Sun Marathon

10 weeks until the Midnight Sun Marathon in Tromsø, Norway- and marathon week in London (for my husband- and 53,000 other runners! Biggest group of finishers ever at the London marathon!)

And what a fun one it was…

(Technically I’m a week behind, this is last week’s recap but I didn’t publish last weekend, so publishing now!)

Here’s how training went this past week

Monday: 7 mile solo morning run, pilates reformer at Ten Health

Tuesday: Run commute, 4.5 miles, office run 3.1 miles for 7.5 miles on the day.

Wednesday: Workout Wednesday! I decided to do this after work (with my goal of running after work occasionally to physically prepare for Tromsø’s 8:30 pm start!); I ran-commuted home and stopped at the cinder track by Regent’s park. 2.5 mile warm-up to the track, dropped my backpack off in the grass, then 5x1200m with 2:30 rest/jog, cool-down jog home for 2 miles. 9.4 miles total.

Thursday: I ran-commuted with my colleague Tina, 4.5 miles and then I ran to the Four Seasons hotel on Park Lane where my friend from the U.S. was staying, and we ran 5 miles together. She’s here from NYC to run the London marathon on Sunday! I hadn’t seen her in several years, so it was wonderful to catch up over some miles together. 9.5 miles total on the day.

I left the office a little bit early to take the train east to meet Dustin at the Liverpool Street Station, to then take the Elizabeth Line out to the ExCel for the London marathon expo! It was nice to go on a weekday as it was not very busy. Dustin did a bit of shopping for some London gear and then we trained home for some carbo loading. I’m not running on Sunday, but I’m happy to participate in the carbs, ha!

I found my name on the six-star finisher’s list! (i.e. Chicago, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Boston, New York City!)

Friday: Taylor Swift new album day! I don’t normally listen to music when I run with Ruth (I like to be able to talk to her and react if she grabs food…or a croissant from a kid’s hand, haha!) But I made an exception to listen to the new album.

I love it! “So Long, London” even has a line about the Heath, “I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath.” I wish I would have lived here when she lived in London! This article shares a bit more and even has a picture of the ponds behind our flat.

And here’s Ruth and Matilda in the Heath just for fun…

Saturday: I connected with a new runner friend through the Mornington Chasers who is training for the Edinburgh marathon (her first) to do our long runs together. She didn’t want to go any faster than 10 min/miles, but I don’t mind an easier-for-me pace for the long ones, I’ll do some marathon pace workouts when I am on my own. It ended up being a group of 5 of us and was great company.

We met in Primrose Hill, ran through Regent’s Park to Holland Park to Battersea and back. 19 miles! It was probably a bit too early for a 19 miler but it was an easy pace and felt really nice… I took plenty of fuel and just enjoyed the miles. To be honest, it felt like running 19 miles easy was much kinder on my body than the 16 the weekend before with marathon pace!

The rest of my Saturday was quite chilled since it was the day before the marathon for Dustin. I did get a facial (dermaplaning + a chemical peel) and took the dogs on some walks, but that’s it.

Sunday: London marathon day! I ended up getting up at the same time as Dustin. He left the flat around 7:30 am to make his way to the start line. The start line of the London marathon is sort of far outside of the city in Greenwich; he had to take the Northern line underground to London Bridge and then a National Rail (suburban train) out to Maize Hill. (Like many other big city marathons, public transport in London is free for participants on race day, FYI.)

I left our place around 8:45 to get to Canada Water, where I had hoped to cheer for him at both mile 9 and 11.

Well, that plan didn’t work! I saw him at mile 9, but then I couldn’t get across the course to sprint over to mile 11, so that was bust. I was with my friend Katy’s partner Cary. He hung back at 9 to see her (she ran around 3:20) and planned to meet me at the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Well, the Rotherhithe tunnel was closed to pedestrians for construction! Instead, we sprinted back to the Canada Water tube station to try to take the train across the Thames. Unfortunately the queue for the tube was wrapped around the station! Next, we tried the Overground, but it was cancelled entirely!

Now what? Well, next option: Lime bikes (i.e. the city rental bikes) but cycling through the crowds was essentially impossible.

Last option? Run to the London Bridge tube station and take the Northern back across the river to try to catch our runners before the finish. And we made it! I was not expecting to run so hard on my rest day, ha! But we caught Dustin at mile 23 and then my friend Katy, who was just slightly behind him.

Lesson learned… I should have found a spot at mile 14 and 22 where the runners pass twice and just stayed there, vs. tried to see Dustin at 4 spots, especially with the first two spots on the “wrong” side (non-finish line) of the Thames!

What an adventure. I tracked 10 miles of walking/running (not counting the cycling or the trains) trying to get around the city to spectate.

I was happy to at least make it to the finish. I found Dustin as he made his way out of the finisher’s area. We then walked to Covent Garden to a pub that our friends had booked and celebrated with a few pints, before taking the train home. (I had booked a dogsitter to walk/hang with the dogs since I was essentially gone from 8:30 to 6 pm!)

Dustin was happy to break 3 hours again (his third time). His PB is 2:54 from Indianapolis, but he ran 2:59:30 at London and was pretty proud of himself. I’ve been encouraging him to write a guest post about his training (especially as he often runs at my pace, which doesn’t seem to have hurt him at all!) And, in his words, “I’m not a young man anymore and can still break 3 hours.” Ha!

Summary: 60 miles of running, 3 Pilates classes (2 Ten Health, 1 Heartcore). Lots of zipping around London to cheer for Dustin!

That’s a wrap on last week! I’ll catch up soon with a two week recap so I’m back on track here.

I’m linking up with Running on the Fly and Confessions of a Mother Runner; check out their blogs to connect with other fitness bloggers for workout ideas and inspiration!

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