MY TOKYO MARATHON - 7 WEEKS TO RACE DAY

This week I set the intention to go back into the marathon training zone post festive break and get accustomed to my new Garmin Forerunner 35. I have trained and ran my three major marathons to date with a Fitbit Surge and recently purchased the Garmin Forerunner 35 to fit in with my fit family of siblings. We now all use a Garmin as our fitness monitoring tool.

I am the eldest of four siblings, I have two sisters and one brother. Sister Laura is the second eldest, brother Kaz is third eldest and baby sister Lou Lou is the youngest. We are all physically active and very competitive in nature. Laura has recently started running and is aiming to complete her first half marathon this year. My bro Kaz represented Hong Kong in the World Triathlon Series and has completed Dublin, London, Berlin, Paris and the Medoc Marathon his personal best is 2hrs:59mins. Kaz is aiming to complete the Berlin Marathon again this year. Lou Lou is the leanest and fittest of the siblings she has completed Paris and the Medoc Marathon and has no running goals this year but likes to keep fit at the gym with her personal trainer, Barry's Bootcamp, Pscyle London and you can also find her jogging around Hampstead Heath at the weekends.

Enough about my siblings and back to this week's training journal. I don't really have a training programme as such. I try and put in 3 to 4 runs a week along with my daily yoga, meditation and a fitness class or gym session of some sort of cross training to work on my core. I managed to go out on Sunday with my new Garmin and go for a 9km run on Hampstead Heath with Lou Lou. I wanted to test my legs on the hills and did 4 reps on Parliament Hill as part of the run and took the run at a slow and steady pace, concentrating on my breathing, and getting in tune with my body's overall running fitness level and especially my legs and playing around with my Garmin. Overall, I was happy with the hill reps and I didn't need to stop, my posture was solid and my breathe was good and the legs felt good and strong. My Garmin worked fine but I struggled to reset it when I accidently hit pause and the scroll functions I found less user friendly than my Fitbit. I use the Garmin to mainly monitor my running distance, time and heart rate whilst I am running and don't wear it as my everyday watch as I find them too bulky. I did wear my Garmin all day on Sunday after my run and found it has a number of other function such as step counter, move bar (which I found quiet annoying especially when I trying to watch a movie on Sunday evening on the couch), sleep monitoring, calories burned, distance travelled and GPS. You can add work out profiles from the gym and it can also measure cycling features. One note for any Garmin users is that the watch as to be worn quiet snug and tight on your wrist to get an accurate heart rate, my sister Lou Lou wears hers quite loose and her resting heart rate was around 40-45 bpm she was pulled up by her personal trainer recently. They did a comparison with another watch worn tighter on the other wrist and the results were her resting heart beat was actually higher 50 - 55 bpm. Now she wears it tighter and closer to her skin.

Monday I was finalising my temporary move to Dubai so didn't have time to run. Tuesday I was travelling all day to Dubai and Wednesday I was unpacking and in work at the office.

Siblings completing the Medoc Marathon 2016

Dubai Super Sports Race Series 10km

Super Sup Fit Class

Garmin Forerunner 35

Thursday morning I was up early due to my jet lag. I went to the gym in my hotel and did 7km with some speed intervals, I'm not a fan of the tread mill but as I didn't have my bearings and not used to the desert heat it was better than no running. It felt good to get a run done before work.

On Friday I ran the Dubai Super Sports Series 10km www.supersportsuae.com. My first race of 2019 and my first ever outdoor run in Dubai. Rasha my colleague and yogi friend ran it with me, she is not a seasoned runner it was her annual get fit after the festive break motivation run. It was a race series with over 1000 participants for 3km, 5km, 10km and 16km. I only signed up entered for the 10km on Wednesday when I landed in Dubai. I thought it would be good to gauge my overall fitness in the Dubai heat. It's the Dubai winter here so it was cool in the early morning and surprisingly ideal running conditions. The 10km race started just after 7am just after sunrise and half way through the run I felt the heat (20 degrees celsius) and the heavy air but I managed a consistent running pace (under 6mins/km) again focusing on my breathe, posture, and legs. I felt good and confident I could go at a steady pace and finish under an hour. I crossed the finish line in 58 minutes which I was happy with and still had fuel in the tank and body and legs were fine. I ran with my Garmin and no music or head phones as I wanted to focus on my breathing. I find breathe work helps with my running it enables me concentrate and internalise what is happening to my body, my running rhythm and mindset. The running route was a flat course and on road, the race was well organised and with enough water stations on the route. After the finish there was plenty of water, protein drinks, fruit, teas, coffee and muffins were provided as part of the race package as well as a finishers technical running shirt and medal. I took advantage of the complimentary post run massage which went down a treat. I have to say for a relatively small race it was very well organised. I met many runners in training for the Dubai Marathon www.dubaimarathon.org which is on 25th January 2019. I exchanged contact details with some running groups and hopefully I can join them in some runs over the next few weeks and get to know some of the running routes around Dubai.

Saturday I went to a Super Sup Fit class www.supersupfit.com. I discovered Sophie's class on my last work trip to Dubai back in December 2018 and I loved her super charged 40 minutes high intensity interval training on fit mats in the swimming pool. It helps work my core strength. I feel the burn in my arms, stomach and legs during the class but its a lot of fun and a great way to work out in the sun.

As I wrap up the week I am happy enough with my mental focus I am feeling confident with my physical body as I have no injuries, aches and pains. For the week that was in it I manged to figure out my Garmin, practice my daily yoga and completed three runs and a HIIT class and my move to a Dubai.

Happy running!

Chrissy x