Coming into this week pretty cooked from Sunday’s 32 km long run. I actually considered swapping the Tuesday workout for an easy run, but decided to stick with the plan — and I’m glad I did. Once I got through the warm-up and the legs loosened up, everything started to click.
Tuesday – Intervals
Same workout as the last couple of weeks: 4 sets × 8 reps, 30 seconds on / 30 seconds off. Managed to keep all efforts under 4:00 min/km, closing out the final reps between 3:40 and 3:25/km. The right tibialis (front of the shin) is still pretty sore and tight, but otherwise a strong session.
Distance: 12.99 km Duration: 65 min
Wednesday – Medium-Long Tempo Run
Shifted the medium-long run forward to Wednesday since the weekend schedule was packed. Ran with a friend on the bike — 15 min warm-up, 60 min tempo, 15 min cool-down. Covered 18.64 km in 93 min, averaging 4:39/km for the tempo.
For comparison:
- 2 weeks ago: 4:42/km
- 3 weeks ago: 4:45/km
So we’re trending nicely in the right direction. Heart rate was right where it should be, and the cooler weather helped. It felt like I was driving with the legs rather than just throttling back to control HR — definite progress. The pace-to-heart-rate ratio came out at 1.62 %, spot-on for marathon efficiency at this stage.
Thursday – Easy Run
60 minutes easy for 10.55 km. Legs feeling every bit of the mileage — tired but still ticking over. Clear signs of fatigue now, which is exactly what you expect at this point in the block.
Friday – Easy Run (Rescheduled)
Moved the usual weekend recovery run to Friday to clear Sunday. 60 minutes easy along the riverfront for 10.5 km, average HR 138. Just cruising, relaxed, and not fasted — conserving glycogen for Saturday’s big one. Legs heavy but manageable.
Saturday – Long Run (3 × 8 km Marathon-Pace)
Another one of the biggest sessions of the block. This is what marathon training is all about, and I love it. I mapped out a 4 km loop around the Luang Prabang peninsula — fairly flat apart from one short, sharp climb back up from the river side to the main road. I hid some drinks in the bushes near the hotel and looped past them, stopping every second lap for quick drink breaks been the 8 km reps.
Workout: 3 × 8 km at marathon pace with 2–3 min jog recoveries
Splits: 4:43 / 4:42 / 4:41 per km
Heart rate: 159 / 161 / 162 bpm
Total: 30 km in 2:27 (average HR 157 bpm)
Everything landed right where it should. The only hiccup — quite literally — was a rotten gel in the second rep, Ii gulped it down before I realised and then the taste hit me and my stomach turned, I was on the main road with loads of peple preparing for the morning alms giving so couldn’t just spew in the gutter where the monks were about to walk, eventually I to found a trash bag, wretched a few times then recovered straight back into my MP rep
Conditions were tough: 22–23 °C, humid, light rain toward the end, and heavy legs after five consecutive running days — my second long run within a 7-day period since I brought this run forward to Saturday. But I ground it out and finished strong.
Weekly Totals
Distance: 82.6 km Time: ≈ 7 h 08 min
Another solid week over 80 km, capping a sustained peak block. 115km if you count the period from Sunday to Saturday
Reflection
I feel like this training block is both going on forever and somehow not long enough. I’m done with the heat and the super-early mornings — but race day suddenly feels close, and there’s still that sense of needing just a little more time to dial things in.
Next week is a well-earned down week — time to freshen the legs before the final five-week push. One more monster long run left in the training block