"London Marathon 2025: Getting in Shape Again for the Ultimate Running Challenge!"

After a better night's sleep, I was up at 5 am, feeling far more refreshed and motivated than yesterday. The knowledge that today's session wouldn't involve a threshold run certainly helped to put a bit more of a spring in my step. My ever-faithful Garmin, a device that occasionally feels more like a demanding personal trainer than a watch, treated me to a sprints session in Rochester. I set off with something resembling enthusiasm, though I was aware that by the end, it might more accurately be described as grim determination. The Sprint Plan and the Curious Case of Uphill Running The plan itself was straightforward enough: 9 x 15-second efforts spread over a 45-minute session. I tackled three sprints with three-minute recoveries between them, focusing on maintaining form and actually resembling a runner rather than a flailing scarecrow. After a longer five-minute recovery run, I repeated the cycle twice more. These sessions are invaluable for building speed and power, so ...

The Luxury of a Saturday Run One of the true joys of marathon training falling on a Saturday is the chance to start later in the day. With no early alarms or work commitments to navigate, I was able to lace up my trainers after 11am—my favourite time to run. A proper night's sleep, a good meal and the daylight hours all make for the perfect combination. It’s a far cry from those early weekday runs, like the misty morning over the Medway Bridge a couple of days ago, where just keeping moving felt like an achievement. The Perils of Pizza and an Anaerobic Session Today's session, however, was never going to be an easy one. An anaerobic workout was on the cards, and I didn’t do myself any favours with last night’s choice of pizza. While carb-heavy, it always seems to leave me with a sluggish, food-hangover feeling the next day. I knew from the start this one was going to be a battle. The plan: a 15-minute warm-up followed by 7x1-minute hard efforts at around 4:30 min/km pace—far fa...

A Test of Speed and Sanity As promised, today’s training took a significant upward turn—both in effort and in sheer stubbornness. It was time to shake things up with an anaerobic-focused run, stretching to a full hour. Nothing says ‘commitment’ like voluntarily gasping for breath before sunrise. After a thorough warm-up, I launched into the main event: seven one-minute intervals at a blistering 4:30 min/km pace. For those unfamiliar with this kind of suffering, that’s about a minute per kilometre faster than my usual 10k pace—so, essentially, the sort of speed that makes your legs file an official complaint with the management. Recovery periods of three minutes in between allowed my heart rate to return to something vaguely human while lactic acid was politely escorted from my muscles. This high-speed torture is proving invaluable for improving my top-end pace, even if it occasionally makes me reconsider all my life choices. Into the Darkness, Literally With the run stretching longer, ...