These past 2 weeks have been going pretty well. Training has gone really smooth which is great when you are getting into the thick of the marathon training. Last week's training was mainly just marathon effort training as I was a little tired from travelling back from Japan. We didn't want to push too hard so that I can hit the rest of the training over the next few weeks pretty hard. I ended up doing a bit of a progression run on Tuesday, the day after I got back from Japan and then I ran 10 times 1km with a minute recovery out by Greg's house. He rode beside me on his bike to make sure that I didn't start running faster than what he had prescribed. This workout was peculiarly harder than I thought it would be even though I was just running at 5 minute mile pace. It felt a lot harder than when I run the same reps 10 to 15 seconds quicker. Greg thought that it was a good sign for me to do more of this type of work as my body needs to get efficient at that pace. A couple of days later I ran a nice easy 2.5 hour run with the guys and started practising my hydration strategy. This, of course is much easier than when I'm running at marathon pace but it did mean finding out how much fluid I could take on during the run.

I have been really fortunate to have been given a new sponsorship with the nutrition company ZipVit Sports. All the products have been great and unlike most recovery drinks, theirs tastes really good. I always hate getting back from a workout or run and have to choke down a chalky and bland drink so it's going to be a delight using their products. The sponsorship came at the right time as they have a drink specifically for hot conditions so that will be perfect to using over the next 7 weeks preparing for the World Champs marathon.

This past week started out really well with a nice and relaxed steady state run that I ran with a Brett and Fasil. We were running quickly but easier than ever before so that was a nice confidence booster for my 16 mile tempo run that I will run this weekend. My other hard workout of the week was a Lydiard hill circuit that took a long time but was a great strength booster. I did this on my own as my hamstring is still giving me a little trouble and I wanted to give it some time to warm up during the day. The guys ran the workout in the morning but I waited until later to make sure I didn't make it any worse by running on it when it was tighter.

The weekend's long run was good as Nick, Fasil and I were all a little tired but we had a long progressive run so it would be a good run to blow some cobwebs out of our legs. We ran it on the hilly A1 21 mile loop and ran it pretty well. My hamstring was grabbing a few times but it always felt better pretty quickly. I finished off the week with a nice recovery day on Sunday to round out a 135 mile week. I hit the high mileage without really trying so it will be interesting to see how many miles I will cover in the rest of this training phase as I have no other races.

Sunday also meant getting together with Greg and the 3 other coaches from www.mcmillanrunning.com to go over some new strategies and ideas on how the company will move forward. It was exciting to brainstorm with the others and see how each of us can promote each of our specialities. I'm looking forward to channelling some more energy into the online coaching and helping the company to expand.

Andrew (@LemonRuns)

@Mizuno_Running

@zipvit_sport