Weekly Recap: 12 Weeks Until the Cape Town Marathon

Hello again!

If you missed it, I shared a guest post this week by Dustin about his training and experience running the London marathon back in April! A bit delayed, but that’s okay! Go give it some love 😊

I also shared a recap of our recent hiking trip on the Tour Mont Blanc. Check that one out HERE!

Before that, my last post was my recap of the Midnight Sun Marathon, which was my 45^th marathon. Be sure to read that recap if you haven’t. It was one of my favorite marathons!

Since then, we’ve done a bit of traveling- we had a weekend in Brugges, Belgium for Dustin’s birthday- waffles, chocolate, beer, mussels, frites- all that good stuff!

Then we took a bigger trip to hike the Tour Mont Blanc with some friends from the U.S. I found blogs really helpful when we were preparing for that hike, so I want to keep that good karma going by sharing my experience on the internet! All the details are HERE.

As for running, I’ve been building back after Tromso, and am now preparing for my next full marathon, the Cape Town Marathon (THIS ONE)

The Cape Town marathon will be October 20^th. I am now 12 weeks out so I’m back in marathon training. Still working with Donal, the coach that I met here in London, he’s been grand.

We plan to spend just over a week in Cape Town; we are not combining the marathon with a safari, but rather are focusing on exploring Cape Town, with 3 days at a hotel that is convenient for the marathon, 2 nights in the winery area, and 3 nights at the beach (and hiking Table Mountain, hopefully after our legs are recovered.) Open to advice on Cape Town  (but, remember- no safari, just Cape Town. We have some tentative plans for a different African country for a safari next year and want to keep that separate from the marathon trip.)

Here’s how training went this past week!

Monday: Rest from running, pilates Reformer after work at Heartcore. Really great class with lots of core. It felt hard, but probably because I hadn’t taken a pilates class since before our hiking trip!

Tuesday: Run commute with my colleague Tina, and then the office run (we did a slightly longer route in Hyde park) for 8 miles total. Core (Caroline Girvan dead bug) & upper body after work.

Wednesday: Short speed session before work: 2 mile warm-up, 8×1 min on, 1 min off at the cinder track, 2 mile cool-down for 6 miles total. Over lunch my colleague Katherine and I took a Barry’s bootcamp class. I wouldn’t normally want to do a HIIT class like that on the same day as a speed sesh, but its hard for me to say no if someone asks me to do something social that involves fitness! And it was a fun class at the SoHo studio (closest one to our office.)

Thursday: Run commute with Tina and Kelly to Mayfair for the Thursday morning WMN run, which is a 4 mile loop in Hyde Park, then I jogged to the office to shower and get ready, 9 miles total.

Friday:  Another “session”- warm-up, 3×6 minutes at marathon effort with 2 min jog in between, 2 mile cool-down for 7 miles. Heartcore pilates reformer class after work.

I brought Ruth on this run, though these two pics are from a run last week when we did a point-to-point and took the tube home after. She gets a lot of attention on the train!

(Or on the escalator to the train- you have to carry your dog on the escalator.)

This picture is from one of our Rovers who walks the girls when Dustin and I are both at the office. I don’t know how she gets them all to pose for pictures!

Saturday: 13 mile long run, easy pace. Warm- this pup in Kensington Gardens had the right idea!

Sunday: 6 miles with Dustin and Ruth. Heartcore pilates on the schedule for later today.

Summary: About 49 miles of running, 2 pilates classes.

In other news, the merch for my next Taylor show arrived! My sister Cresta is coming over from the U.S. and we are going with my friend Sarah and her mom on night 1 of the 5-night stop at Wembley. Can’t wait!

I’m linking up with Running on the Fly and Confessions of a Mother Runner; check out their blogs to connect with other fitness bloggers for workout ideas and inspiration!