Copenhagen Marathon – Race Week Update

In my first training update for the Copenhagen Marathon (click Here for a reminder), I explained how my first few weeks of training went, which was about as well as I could have hoped for until a hip issue provided a setback in my 4th week of training.

A lot has happened since that update.

Some of it good. Some of it not so good.

But all of it added together has gotten me to right where I am today – with only a few days until the Copenhagen Marathon!

So, here is a quick breakdown of how my last several weeks of training have gone and how I’m feeling as I get ready to go to Denmark:

Weeks 5 – 7

Picking up where my last update ended, my hip issue lingered around a little bit longer than I had hoped. Another up and down week followed – a couple of really good runs were unceremoniously greeted by a return of my hip issue.

So, I finally decided to see my chiropractor, who gave me some stretches and exercises to do to help loosen up my hips.

With my hips now feeling better, I then had only a few days before my lone race of this training cycle – The Garden Spot Village 1/2 Marathon. If you read my race preview and recap (here and here) for this race, then you might already know that I was really happy to finish with a time of 1:37:24 and negative split the race.

I felt like this race put me in a good spot heading into the second half of my training plan.

Weeks 8 – 10

On the back of my confidence-building half marathon, week 8 of my training plan was my best week so far. Highlighted by a great speed workout, a very nice progression run and another long run of 13 miles, I definitely felt like I was back on track. Or at least very close!

Week 9 started off in the same way with some easy miles, followed by another great speed workout. But just as things were starting to feel really good, I had some bad pain in my ankle/foot that I felt on every step during the final miles of one of my runs. I’m not sure what it was – there was no bruising or swelling, but I immediately took it easy for a few days, with short and easy runs until the pain went away.

The plan for Week 10 was several days of both AM and PM runs, which were easy-paced and for the most part felt really good. And completing all of them without any pain in my foot had me once again feeling like I was back on track.

Weeks 11 – 13

I took a trip to Boston to watch the marathon and enjoyed a few days of easy running. The day after I returned home, I was not feeling well and, since I had been traveling, I took an at-home Covid test. It came back positive (as did the follow-up PCR test) and, as you can imagine, my training was impacted by this.

The good news though was that my symptoms were minor and went away after only a few days, but once again I lost some ground in my training.

After my symptoms went away and now with only 3 weeks until the marathon, I began to try to get back into my training and determine how I was feeling, what my fitness level was like and what I could still do with the remaining time.

Towards the end of Week 12, I was encouraged by a friend to go for a 10+ mile run – at whatever pace necessary to complete it. Thankfully, I completed 11 miles at about 8:00 per mile and was feeling good enough for my last few miles to be my fastest of the run.

I think this run was a huge turning point for me. Since then (almost 2 weeks), I have had nothing but good and great runs – including a lot of miles at marathon pace!

Race Week

Nobody ever said that training for a marathon would be easy. It has never proved to be that way for my previous marathons.

And it has proved itself once again this time.

I started out this training cycle with the intention of really going for a Boston qualifying time in Copenhagen, which for me would be sub-3:10.

As I am getting ready to leave for Denmark in a few hours, I feel the best that I have since very early on in the training cycle.

But I also have to be realistic – as hard as that might be sometimes!

With the various setbacks that I have had, I was forced to make a few adjustments to my plan and that includes my target race time, which I have now set at sub-3:20.

I think that this is still a realistic goal and one that I am going to do my best to achieve on Sunday!

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More From RunPatRun:

Here are some things you can look forward to in my upcoming blog posts (once I get back from Denmark):

• Copenhagen Marathon recap: Of course, once I run the Copenhagen Marathon this Sunday and have some time to digest how I did, I will give a full recap of the race.
• Boston Marathon: I was so happy to be in Boston to watch the Marathon in April. I’ll have a post about what that was like and how it has affected my goal of someday qualifying for and running in the race.
• Running and Traveling: I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to some cool places to run in a few races. I’ll give some tips on how to prepare for a race when traveling. Or if you aren’t doing a race, but just looking to stay active and running during vacation, I’ll give some tips on that also!