After losing 14 stone Abi is tackling her first marathon, this week she faces chronic weather, invites to the pub and shares a film of her weight loss and fitness journey so far.
Name: Abi Wright
Goal: To finish in one piece!
Marathon history: First marathon
What I’ve learned this week: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
Monday
Singing in the rain – yes! Running in the rain – I’m not so sure. Today I braved it and I hit my first proper run in the wet, after all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. My top tip is to make sure you wear a cap to keep the rain off your face and out of your eyes and distract yourself from the miserable British weather by turning your music up full whack. I planned to run three miles and came back with four in the bag. Wicked.
Tuesday
My marathon sessions are all about training smart and using my time wisely to prepare my body for the ultimate challenge. I hit a session at home, a hardcore spin session followed by a mile on the treadmill and some weights combi to build up my strength and ensure these legs see me through the distance!
Wednesday
I’ve been reading a lot of marathon material to help me through training and there’s a lot of info out there saying it’s a good idea to mix up your training to improve overall stamina. With this in mind, I decided to test my legs with a three-mile interval sprint session – my heart rate was off the scale! All this hard work though does give me confidence to hit my longer runs at the weekend.
Thursday
I pulled an old classic out the bag, a good old brick session – bike followed by a treadmill session on tired and shaky legs. Over the past couple of years, as I’ve lost weight and started exercising, my pace and cardiovascular fitness has increased dramatically. Now I can even talk while running, well, a few choice words anyway!
Friday
My friends called and asked if I wanted to go for a drink, and my answer was NO! My training and the marathon challenge is so important to me, that I can’t afford to have a hangover, I have one goal and that is to cross the finish line and rock the medal! So I swapped my suit for Lycra and headed out for a run. When I got back I was buzzing so I hit my spin bike for an awesome session.
Saturday
Woken by EYE OF THE TIGER, I got straight on the porridge then let it digest for two cosy hours back in bed. I love this time as I use it to sort through my thoughts and focus my mind ready to hit my long run – which can take a little convincing at times. The weather was sunny but really windy, it even knocked me over at some points. Although my schedule said eight miles I’d planned a 10 miler. But at the eight mile mark, Mr Piriformis (the actual pain in the ass) came out to play, I didn’t want to push my luck and risk injury so I walked/ran the last two miles. A few fancy moves on my foam roller and ball, post run are helping iron out the piriformis kinks.
Sunday
Day of rest but it was such a lovely sunny day I decided to keep the legs moving and take a three mile walk to Costa. You can’t beat sunny miles! Bring on week 5.
