Hi Everyone,

Welcome back – it was great to see so many women running last week!  This Monday we’re heading to Sloane Square, the Embankment, Westminster and Green Park.  This is a great route with many distance options and a chance to see some beautiful parts of the city.  We’re also starting our more intense tempo training this Wednesday (more on that below).

We’re in an important part of our training – only 12 training weeks until the race (plus 2 weeks of vacation).  Try to block out the running time in your schedule and make it a priority.

Long Runs are KEY!

We’re now in mileage building time!  The long run is the most important thing during this period.  If you’re struggling to remain motivated or are dealing with aches/pains, consider doing less mileage on your mid-distance run.  You could also consider doing less on the hills. You’ll see from our training schedules, that we’ll build mileage over a few weeks and then have some periodic cutback weeks.  It’s important to give your body some recovery weeks with less mileage.

Looking ahead

We have the following long runs on the schedule:

Jan. 12 – Sloane Square/Westminster/Green Park (7.5 miles)

Jan. 19 – Big Ben Loop (8 miles)

Jan. 26 – Canal West/ Hyde Park/Mayfair (7 miles)

Feb. 2 – Wembley Park (7-9 miles)

Feb. 9 – Canary Wharf (9 miles)

Feb. 16 – Winter Break

Also on Friday Jan 23 we’ll be adding a 7-mile Heath route for those who would like to build to doing the full 8-mile Heath route.

Plan for Canary Wharf – Feb 9

February 9 is an important training day because if you’ve been following either the standard or gradual training schedule all groups need to do a 9-mile run.   Mark your calendars – I’d love to see the entire group make the run to Canary Wharf that day.

Tempo Run this week 

Make sure you read the description below in the route section.  Over the next two months leading up to the race we’ll be doing some more structured tempo/speed work.  If you haven’t done speed work before, it is important that you don’t jump right into doing sprints.  You’ll see that this week, we have an easy/gentle run to Hyde Park with some stretches of fast running in the park and then an easy run (or bus/tube ride) home.   THIS IS SO MUCH MORE FUN IF YOU TACKLE THIS AS A GROUP AND ENCOURAGE EACH OTHER!  Wait for the group during the recovery parts and at the end so you can travel back to SJW together.  Some of the most difficult workouts can be the most fun if you do it with the group!

Getting back to running

If you’ve been injured or haven’t been running in the fall please plan to gradually build your mileage.  If you add too much too soon, you risk injury.  If you would like to link up with some other runners who are getting back into running, please let me know.

That’s all for now!

Keep running,

Jane

ROUTES

Monday 12 January  – Sloane Sq/Westminster/Green Park (7.5 miles)

Everybody starts out to Hyde Park, taking the usual route: west on Circus Road, left on Grove End, all the way down to Seymour Place where the road ends.  Right on Seymour, across Edgware, left on Stanhope and enter the park. At the silver orb, turn left and run down to the southern edge, following the path to the right before it leaves the Park.  Run to exit by the tall shiny new ‘One Hyde Park’ complex, cross over Knightsbridge and continue ahead on Sloane Street.  Continue past Sloane Square down Lower Sloane St/ Chelsea Bridge Road to the Thames.  Turn left on the Thames side of Grosvenor Road and run along the embankment.  Continue left on Birdcage Walk, cutting through St James Park to the Mall, then left on the Mall towards Buckingham Palace, crossing before the circle to reach Green Park.  Run up to the Green Park Tube on Piccadilly St and head home!

Wednesday 14 January – Hyde Park Tempo Triangle

Head down to Hyde Park the usual way at a very gentle pace.  Once you reach the park pick up the pace a bit around Speaker’s Corner, and then run very fast down to the SE corner of the park. Jog slowly around the corner while you try to bring your heart rate back down to a recovered rate. Once you reach the straightaway, run hard again to Carriage Road.  Slow down to a recover rate again as you cross over the bridge and up to the path, where you will turn right and run hard along the diagonal back to Speaker’s Corner.  Jog very slowly back to SJW or, even better, hop on the bus or tube from Marble Arch. If you are not doing tempo work, you can do this run at a regular pace (if you go back to SJW it is about 6.5 miles).

Friday 16 January – The Heath (4-8 miles)

It’s Friday so everyone head up Fitzjohn’s.  You can pick your distance and whatever you choose, there will certainly be someone else interested in running that distance.  All of these routes are on the website.

4 miles:  A great way to ease into running the hill.   Run up to the Hampstead tube station and back.

5 miles: The Betsy Route

6-7miles:  The partial Heath route

8 miles:  The full Heath route

Click here for maps of all of the Heath routes.

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