She took a break from running after her first marathon earlier this year but Abi is donning her trainers again to take on the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon. With two weeks to go, she’s working on speed, hills and upping those miles.
My speed has dropped back a little since I ran the Virgin London Marathon earlier this year and so I’ve been concentrating on adding shorter runs and speed work to my training in the few weeks since I agreed to run the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon. I really want to beat my 2.50.02 finish time from last year (my first ever half) so I’ve been blasting the legs with some speedy 1.5/2 mile runs in the morning and adding in treadmill sessions alternating between high intensity pacey intervals and slower recovery sets.
This week I’ve been on holiday in Devon so I’ve been challenging myself with some tough hill sessions to build power and strength in my legs. HARD WORK! The hills here are second to none. I’m also a big fan of keeping things fresh with a bit of cross training so I’ve been tackling them on my bike too – a short nine-mile circuit with 1,214 of climbing certainly made the muscles burn!
I’ve realised though that I need to work on my endurance too. The longest I’ve run since the marathon in April is seven miles but I wanted to get my legs in a better, stronger place before I tackled a longer run. I think I’m there now so over the next two weeks I’ll be building up to a 10-mile run. I’m sure my legs have it in them but it’s more of a mental thing, once I’ve got the distance covered I know it’ll give me the boost I need and set me up to tackle the full 13.1 on 12 October.
I am giving this half my all and I cannot wait to cross that line.
Follow Abi on Twitter at @abiwrightonit
Read Abi’s earlier RPFH blog here
Read more about Abi’s weight loss journey here
