The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Update

September 16, 2024

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Update

The 2:49 Project Week 5 was a very positive week. As in everything in life, it is very seldom all smooth sailing, but when looking at it on the whole, the decrease in volume helped me get my head back in the game. I still had some good intensity and even threw in an unexpected local 5k race into my Saturday training. There are always going to be questions and doubts creeping in and this last week was no exception. However, having trained for so many of these, I recognize that every training block will be different. I'll discuss my thoughts. on this later in this post.

By the way, if you are following along with the training, I'd love to hear how your training went last week. Even if you are following your own plan, I'd appreciate seeing your progress. Please comment at the bottom of this page or on any of the social media accounts. Let's do this together.

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Update: The Daily Updates

Let's start by taking the 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Update of the running sessions. Without exception, my sessions went to plan. Or at least I should say, I achieved the ultimate objective from each one. There were a few miles missed on Saturday, but that was due to finding the opportunity to race a 5k and, therefore, missed a few of the extra miles on either side of the hard 5k. Other than that it was all as I scripted it.

Monday:

Monday was a non running day. I ended up working around the house and getting a good long walk with the dog. I also got my 20 minute bodyweight strength routine done. It wasn't so chilled as the last few weeks as the work on the house was rather rigorous. Still, a little rest for the legs is always good.

Nutrition 2079 kcals
My nutrition was good, fairly disciplined. I was a little low in protein and a little low in water consumption but I ate consistently throughout the day. Not having run, I did not take a protein shake which would have got me to my protein target for the day.

112g of Protein
237g of Carbohydrates
73g of Fat
4250 ml of Water

Strength & Conditioning:

20 minute bodyweight routine done.

Sleep:

On Sunday evening I was in bed at 22:34 and up Monday morning at 05:08. The sleep breakdown looked like this:
0:38 Deep Sleep
3:46 Light Sleep
2:10 REM Sleep

Total Sleep: 6:34

Tuesday:

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Tuesday was an 8 mile (13k) hilly run. A hilly run is one that takes in some challenging hills. I consider it similar to a hill rep session but in a real world environment. I'm fortunate that I'm surrounded by mountains, so finding hills to traverse is no problem. Finding flat roads is far harder. This run had 171m (561 ft) of elevation gain.

Time of Day: 09:26

Temperature: 24 degrees (74 F)

Shoes: Nike Revolution 6

Nutrition 1769 kcals:

115g of Protein
172g of Carbohydrates
69g of Fat
4250 ml of Water

Strength & Conditioning:

20 minute bodyweight routine done as well as 20 minutes yoga for runners.

Sleep:

On Monday evening I was in bed at 23:03 and up Tuesday morning at 05:04. The sleep breakdown looked like this:
0:36 Deep Sleep
3:00 Light Sleep
2:16 REM Sleep

Total Sleep: 5:52

Wednesday:

Wednesday of Week 5 was my second no running day of the week. Once again, I spent the day working outside around the house. Once again the work was rather rigorous. Digging a long trench and cutting through concrete with a grinder and chisel made for a long, physical day.

Nutrition 2306 kcals:

This was another good day of eating.

201g of Protein
216g of Carbohydrates
66g of Fat
3750 ml of Water

Strength & Conditioning:

20 minute bodyweight routine done

Sleep:

On Tuesday evening I was in bed at 21:41 and up Wednesday morning at 05:09. The sleep breakdown looked like this:
0:35 Deep Sleep
4:36 Light Sleep
2:16 REM Sleep

Total Sleep: 7:27

Thursday:

On Thursday, the plan called for a 7 mile (11k) progression run. These are some of my favourite sessions to do. They require good planning and real grit coming to the latter miles. On this one my splits were:

Mile 1: 8:34 (5:19/k)
Mile 2 8:03 (5:00/k)
Mile 3: 7:35 (4:43/k)
Mile 4: 7:21 (4:34/k)
Mile 5: 7:04 (4:24/k)
Mile 6: 6:35 (4:05/k)
Mile 7: 6:24 (3:59/k)

Time of Day: 10:08

Temperature: 27 degrees (81 F)

Shoes: Nike Alphafly 1 (old pair)

Nutrition 2178 kcals:

195g of Protein
219g of Carbohydrates
55g of Fat
2500 ml of Water

Strength & Conditioning:

20 minute bodyweight routine

Sleep:

On Wednesday evening I was in bed at 22:30 and up Thursday morning at 05:59. The sleep breakdown looked like this:
0:36 Deep Sleep
4:41 Light Sleep
2:12 REM Sleep

Total Sleep: 7:29

Friday:

For the 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Update, Friday was another 5k social run in the morning. This one, as it always is, turned into a great run with friends. This is always followed up with coffee and more laughs.

Time of Day: 08:38

Temperature: 23 degrees (73 F)

Shoes: Nike Revolution 6

Nutrition 1996 kcals:

117g of Protein
258g of Carbohydrates
53g of Fat
3250 ml of Water

Strength & Conditioning:

20 minute bodyweight routine done.

Sleep:

On Thursday evening I was in bed at 21:47 and up Friday morning at 07:18. The sleep breakdown looked like this:
4:51 Deep Sleep*
4:23 Light Sleep
0:00 REM Sleep

Total Sleep: 9:23

*My watch has never reported anything like this and I am assuming it is a bad reading. But I have nothing else to go on, so it is as reported. As I've mentioned before about my thoughts on the watch and the data it returns, I look for trends. In this case I will throw this out of my equation when evaluating the data.

Saturday:

On Saturday of Week 5 of the 2:49 Marathon Project I had a CoP run with 3 miles (5k) easy, 3 miles (5k) hard effort, and then 3 miles (5k) easy. Instead, I took advantage of a local 5k race to get my hard portion of the run done. It was an evening race at 7pm and when the gun went off the temperature was 24 C (74 F). I made the rookie mistake of getting caught up in the middle of the pack on the start line, which sure cost me some time. It also cost more time as I weaved through the runners to find my space.

I was pleased to take second in my category (hombre 50-59), and I was definitely pleased with the effort and especially the even splits. My watch was set to k's for this one and these were the KM splits:

KM1: 3:48
KM2: 3:50
KM3: 3:49
KM4: 3:53
KM5: 3:53

Time of Day: 19:13

Temperature: 24 degrees (74 F)

Shoes: Nike Alphafly 1's (racing pair)

Nutrition 2163 kcals:

128g of Protein
265g of Carbohydrates
69g of Fat
3500 ml of Water

Strength & Conditioning:

No S & C today

Sleep:

On Friday evening I was in bed at 21:40 and up Saturday morning at 05:01. The sleep breakdown looked like this:
0:40 Deep Sleep
4:18 Light Sleep
2:07 REM Sleep

Total Sleep: 7:05

Sunday:

For the 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Sunday Long Slow Distance run was 22 miles (35k). After putting in a good hard run the night before, I didn't have that "get up and go" I needed and therefore got out a little later than normal for a Sunday run. But once out on the road, everything clicked into place. A couple of long podcasts in my ears and it was an enjoyable run.I covered 22.17 miles (35.68 k).

Time of Day: 10:56

Temperature: 26 degrees (79 F)

Shoes: Hoke Rocket x 2

Nutrition 2265 kcals:

196g of Protein
300g of Carbohydrates
36g of Fat
4500 ml of Water

Strength & Conditioning:

No S & C today

Sleep:

On Saturday evening I was in bed at 22:37 and up Sunday morning at 07:37. The sleep breakdown looked like this:
0:45 Deep Sleep
6:20 Light Sleep
1:55 REM Sleep

Total Sleep: 9:00

Body Weight

The 2:49 Marathon Week 5 Update showed a positive result on the scale, not as much as I would have liked, but still, a loss. I feel the engine starting to heat up. I'm running at a calorie deficit even though my daily calorie intake is up over 2,000 kcals per day most days. As long as the weight keeps dropping I'm happy. This week's Friday weigh-in was 157.4, a loss of just over a half pound. I feel lighter and stronger which, ultimately, is the goal

Strength & Conditioning

I did my 20 minute routine 5 out of 5 weekdays this week. I managed to get 1 x 20 minute yoga sessions done this week. I keep saying it, but I haven't been able to do it consistently, but I will try for my 3 yoga sessions again in week 6.

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Update Lessons Learned

The week began where it finished in week 4, a little down and a bit overwhelmed with everything going on in my life at the minute. However, as the week went on, things turned around. It was after the 7 mile progression run on Thursday that I could notice a significant difference in my mood. I'm grateful that my low moments are fewer and far less intense than they used to be. Although I haven't hit my stride with every aspect of this training block so far, it is going quite well.

In addition, the weather is cooling off, even if it doesn't seem so when looking at the Week 5 sessions. I'm hopeful that as the temperatures cool down, my pace can ramp up on some of these sessions. As an example, I've knocked off 20 seconds off my 5k time over the course of the last 3 weeks. As it cools off, I should be back down to where I expect to be shortly.

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 6 Running Sessions

This week's sessions are described in this post and on YouTube. This is my first cutback week. I think it comes at an interesting time and may be a blessing or a curse. All I can do is find out. The Week 5 Training Sessions in brief look like this:
Monday: 4 miles (7k) easy effort
Tuesday: 8 mile (13k) steady effort
Wednesday: 10 miles (16k) easy effort
Thursday: 10 mile (16k) Split run (5 miles (8k) @ 7:40/mile (4:46/k) & 5 miles (8k) @ 6:40/mile (4:09/k)
Friday: 5k (3 miles) easy effort
Saturday: 9 mile (15k) CoP run
Sunday: 19 mile CoP run

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Update Summary

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 5 Update describes a plan that has started to get back on track. It shows the importance of cutback (de-load) weeks. I am mostly back onboard with everything. I still need to work on getting up earlier and ensuring I get more yoga into the mix, but running-wise, things are trending in the right direction. Here's to another positive week in week 6.

Where Can You Follow the 2:49 Marathon Project?

I accidentally pushed out the week 1 video on the wrong YouTube channel. The correct channel is this one here: JMRunCoach

Daily updates will be shared on my Instagram account and Tiktok account. Weekly updates will be in longer form on YouTube , my Facebook page, and here on the A Heart for Running blog.

If you are on any of these platforms, I would very much appreciate a follow. It would be a huge boost to my chances of reaching my goal.

Also, for anyone who wishes to get email updates, please subscribe to the mailing list at the bottom of this page and the weekly updates will be delivered directly to your inbox. Ensure to check your junk box and allow the emails from here through.

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Weekly Metrics:

This is the Week 5 Updates

Friday Weigh-in Pounds: 157.4 lbs (-.6)
Friday Weigh-in Kg: 71.7 kg (-.27kg)
Average Resting HR: 38 bpm (-2)
Average Nightly Sleep: 7:51 hours (+47 minutes)
Average Daily Protein: 152g/day (+21g)
Average Daily Water: 3821 ml/day (+892 ml)
Total Weekly KM's: 73.18 km (-22.39 km)
Total Weekly Miles: 58.4 miles (+12.9 miles)

Click here to see last week's metrics