We entered into the third week of my preparation for the marathon in Amsterdam!
I’m still taking it a lot easier due to the issue in my lower back which extends to my right leg.
There are occasions where I feel better, but there are also days where it hurts more…
Monday
This run went a bit better but after the run my lower back got very stiff, which was absolutely not comfortable!
I’m planning to start doing more core exercises to avoid this in the future…
But will also need to be careful with that, one wrong move and I make things worse…
Tuesday
Usually on Tuesdays I do a speed workout, but still limiting myself to 5K easy pace runs for the moment.
Trying out different times during the day to see when it feels more comfortable to run.
Tuesday I tried to go for a run at 5h30am but it felt worse then on Monday.
Perhaps running so early in the morning isn’t good for my lower back due to being in the same position for the entire night?
Also did a short strength & conditioning session with a focus on my lower body:
5 x 10 crunches slow and controlled
Afterwards wrapped up with 10 minutes of stretching of my hip/butt area.
Wednesday
Wednesday was a late afternoon run and on a bit of a softer underground to lower the impact on my lower body and especially the lower back/hip area.
During the run it wasn’t bad, but in the end the result was the same, still feeling stiff afterwards…
Thursday
The first run in a week that felt a bit better, tried to pick up the pace a little bit and I didn’t regretted it 👍
This run was done during my lunch break, it does seem that running around this time feels the best…
Friday
Negative thoughts have been going around in my mind for a couple of days now.
Especially wondering if I will be ready for the marathon in Amsterdam, will project 3:20 really work, you get the idea…
I needed a confidence boost, and because I felt pretty ok I went for for it.
Yes indeed around my goal marathon pace for Amsterdam…
I do need to admit that this was a big risk as this could have blown up in my face…
But the result surprised me as it went way better than expected.
It wasn’t easy that’s for sure, but for the remainder of the day I felt better than before my run, go figure 🤷♂️
Saturday
Wanted to see if a speed shoe would give me a more comfortable ride.
For this occasion I ran the first time in the Puma Deviate Nitro 2.
I didn’t wanted to run around the same pace as on Friday, running around my normal easy pace of 11K/h was sufficient for me.
After the run didn’t had more discomforts than before the run so there is definitely an improvement, looking forward in seeing this improvement continue in the next days…
Sunday
Sunday is for a lot of people the day they do their long run, that also counts for me.
Since I’ve ran a 5K every day of the week, I wanted to do an additional kilometre.
6K it was!
it went pretty good to be honest but I still decided to stop at 6K.
I could have continued, but with the risk of making it worse, no thank you!
The pace was also not bad, was testing out the Adidas Adizero Takumi Sen 9 and they really push you forwards, so picking up the pace in them was not so difficult.
Summary
Well that’s a wrap on the third week.
As you could see, unfortunately it wasn’t a great week.
At least I tried to remain consistent and do at least my 5K every day.
Also trying out running at different times during the day to find the most suitable moment, which turns out to be from lunch time till the late afternoon.
Fingers crossed that everything is better during week 4 as Amsterdam is getting a lot closer, 3 weeks to go and I’m not able to do any decent speed work…
I’m also a bit afraid that I’m going to lose a bit of my endurance since I’ve fallen back from running 120K per week to this week only 36K.
That’s all the information I have to share about my third week of training for project 3:20!
If you have any questions or remarks, drop a comment down below or send me a DM on instagram!
