Post marathon and onto the next challenge

Post marathon blues can be a common side affect of running a marathon. All the effort that goes into training, all the planning for race day, all the expectation on goals to be achieved and then all of a sudden it's over and there is suddenly a void where marathon training once consumed your life. 

No such trouble for me on this occasion. Post marathon I decided to employ a reverse taper strategy, which is exactly what it sounds like, increasing my mileage after the marathon in the same we I decreased it in the build up to the race. 

I didn't quite achieve a mirror image but here is what my training schedule looked like pre and post marathon: 

10th 10K 
11th 
12th 5.7K 
13th
14th 4K fartlek
15th
16th
17th 2.5K
18th Chhelmsford Marathon
19th
20th
21st 1.8K 
22nd
23rd 4K fartlek
24th
25th 10K 

And so onto the next challenge...

After the marathon I have ended up going to the complete other end of the running spectrum and am now focusing on 5Ks and in particular training for a sub 20 minute 5K by the end of the year.

This challenge is in competition with running buddies Chris and Tony and we plan to check on our 5K capabilities shortly before having a crack at the sub 20 just before Christmas.

After the long time consuming runs of marathon training it's kind of nice to now be looking at shorter training runs in preparation for 5K. It's nice not to have to commit so much free time to training although I realise if done properly more speed training will in fact be more tiring! 

Although the training will be very different between training for a marathon and a 5K one thing will remain the same the quest for for sub4. For my marathon I was aiming for a sub 4 hour finish and now for a sub 20 minute 5K I will have to achieve sub 4 minute kilometres, so the goal really remains the same!

So for the next little while the blog is likely to be full of speed work, circuit training, hill sprints and intervals and it's a change I am looking forward to. I am really excited to see how far I can improve my current 5K PB of 21.00 over this dedicated period of time. 

Earlier in the year I worked hard on my speed work for a while as I realised I was so out of shape! I managed to improve my time from 23.?? To my current PB of 21.00 in just ? weeks. You can read about that here. 

So stay tuned for how this challenge pans out, you can follow my blog on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or bloglovin. It would be great to get some suggestions on some good speed work sessions and different exercises you have used to get stronger, let me know what has worked for you!