Monday Marathon Training Recap: #MR15Reloaded

Hollandia
Dutch windmill near the entrance of (Ankeveen) our village.
The link above to it's website is in Dutch! 

2nd of January - our daughters, my training muses, and pacers 

The first week of my new (12 weeks) marathon training (or what I call #MR15 reloaded! ) scheme went quiet well.

Productive running in November (125 km) and a decent December (61.8)  km - inspite of the flu I had to battle in the last 2 weeks of 2014! - gave me confidence to take on this new training plan; I felt I had a good foundation to build up from.

I wanted to have a running streak in January, and so before we went to Germany to go to a spa,
I ran a 5K

2nd of January

I feel what makes me mentally stronger  in preparing for my fourth marathon is the effort to record in much more details, every step of the way.

Unlike in my previous marathon preparations (Berlin, Amsterdam & Paris), where I sporadically shared blogposts - updates, which may have seem for others as vague and lack structure.

Admittedly, I wrote more over my feelings and impressions, than write exactly what I was specifically doing or details of the races I did.

At that those times, it was what I needed, what I could do.

Now, I am more "capable" of sharing in the manner I would like to do.

What keeps me going,  when I start standing in my own way, whether in blogging or running are the words I repeat in my head: until I can do (much!) better, I'll do what I can!

I also keep telling myself to be proud with each little step I make - outdoors, in my life, and in the battle to overcome the hurdles of my bipolar disorder.

If you are on INSTAGRAM, please do connect with me, if you are also training for Rotterdam marathon, or another Spring marathon and interested in supporting each other.

I post regular updates there of my training.

On Instagram, I posted a photo-collage using the hashtag #MondayMarathonTrainingRecap to organize all my photo-journal recaps.  By using this hashtag I will have an overview of thoughts I've shared after Sunday's (or perhaps Saturday's) long distance training run.





Below is a week in review in statistics.

Compared to November and December, the pace has slowed down even more.  On one hand it was the pace I needed to start with and on the other hand, I could not run faster, even if I wanted to!

In the second week of January, I had a relapse and was bed-ridden for a week.

Even though I ate properly and took supplements (magnesium & iron), my body simply needed rest, and I did not give it enough time to recover from my flu in December.   Nor did I sleep properly.  Always a challenge for me.

It took me two weeks to recover and go back to training!

I'll update this blog with the links to the blogs of each of the four runs this week.  So far I only managed to publish Friday's Night Run.

Below are images of what I saw during my run - as a preview of what you can expect from each blog.

I hope when I look back at all of my documentation, each run, each week, the 6 months preparation for Rotteram, I'll have less of a hard time - specifically, I won't make it too hard on myself in the next marathon!

Tuesday      20.01 5.05 km

Restaurant Loodijk - fairly new restaurant in our village!
I'll make a better photo next time;
when I've ran my 35 km in my training scheme,
I'll celebrate it with my family here!

Thursday    22.01 10.15 km

Littlest was my pacer for this run!
More pictures of this route in future blogs.

Friday       23.01 10.15 km

Perhaps I am simply a child at heart but I found these street signs spoke to me like flashing messages. :D
"I'm on my way to be Queen of the road!"
Not speed wise but how many times I've ran by this sign in my 3 years of running!!!

Sunday       25.01 25.15 km

I run to eat! :D

This "runfie" was taken in Loosdrecht during my 25K run.

My longest distance run since my injury was diagnosed in September, 2013!

In 2013 I ran 6 Half-Marathons.

In 2014 I ran more 10Ks.

The week was a great return to training, and it helped a lot in giving me back my confidence.

I did struggle with beginning each run, which led to each of them being either late in the afternoon or ending almost before mid-night.

What I was very proud of, after each run I was able to stretch properly - I did at least   5 minutes of yoga, as well as 5 minutes of strength training.

Baby steps!

I purposely did not take pictures of these exercises because I simply wanted to focus on the run itself.

Perhaps by Week 5, I could begin being more creative in sharing, how I do other exercises to compliment my running.

I biked almost the whole week (school run) except for a couple of times. I will begin with logging my bike mileage more meticulously in February.  Normally, I bike 100 kilometers weekly. Below are pictures of the bike paths we bike daily twice a day to and fro our home.  If you would like to follow more of my biking blogs, please check out: The Lightness of Being in the Bike.  This year I'll be blogging more there; the posts will be supplemental to my marathon journals, here.

taken 19th of January, 2015

Well, there we have it, first training week accomplished!

How's your training coming along?