Comments on Edmonton Marathon prep

Weight
o Up 7 pounds from Mississauga marathon in May
o Both my lead up races to this event were run at this weight
o With all the hot weather its been a real struggle to get the weight back down.
o Most of the weight was gained right after the last race.
Training in Hot weather
o This has been tough but useful.
o On at least two occasions my recovery from hard workouts took longer than expected.
Rest and recovery
o I think this was the toughest part to succeed at in this cycle.
· Work was very stressful for about 6 weeks.
· My sleep was affected a number of times due to running hard in the hot weather
o On average I did not get 8 hours a night of sleep. The number was probably closer to 6 and 1/2 to 7.
· On at least two weekends, I did catch up on a lot of this sleep.
· In the week leading up to the race, my rest was generally good.
Overall training
o Achieved most of the key gains in the first 5 weeks of this cycle
o Running in the hot weather made it difficult to determine if more gains were achieved in July or simply maintained.
Prepatory races in July
o Both races went really
o 2nd race was my best result ever as determined by plugging into the McMillan Race Calculator.

Plans for next Cycle
o Get minimum 8 hours of sleep during the week and more on the weekend if possible. This will mean starting to head up to bed by 9 each night. This will be a gradual process for sure. Obviously it will be key to plans for training for the next cycle.
o Weight
· Get below 180. Edmonton race weight 187.6 lbs.
o Continue to not watch much TV during the week. This helps in getting to bed at a decent time.
o Consider adding a short recovery morning run on Monday or Wednesday.


I may add more to this but for now it’s a good start to my thoughts on the last 11 weeks.