In the third of her weekly journals, our Sport Academy runner describes her London Marathon training regime.If I'm entirely honest I think the title of this week's journal should be 'Confessions of a lapsed marathon runner'!
It all started well as Monday was a rest day. So far, so good.
 Madonna - inspiration for Rebecca's dancefloor moves |
However, things started to go a little pear-shaped on Tuesday, when I was supposed to run 5km.
Impressively, I made it to a 5km race around Crystal Palace. Less impressive was the fact that I was only filming the race and not actually taking part at all!
I was a good girl and did my 10K at the gym on Wednesday (I would like to offer my apologies to any gym users put out by my blatant hogging of the running machine!) and another 5km was dutifully run on Thursday.
Friday was my second rest day - supposedly in preparation for a landmark half marathon on Saturday. But because of other commitments, it didn't happen.
And Sunday, normally cross-training day, started extremely energetically - glued to TV watching the Winter Olympics.
 Cross-training for downhill skiing? No contest for Rebecca |
Truth be told, the closest I got to cross training at the weekend was dancing on Friday night. That's an aerobic activity so surely it counts?!
In fact, taking Madonna's lead, maybe this week's instalment would be better renamed "Confessions of a lapsed marathon runner - on a dancefloor".
However, all was not lost. On Monday I ran a half marathon - a whopping 13.1 miles - and lived to tell the tale!
All day before the run I was very apprenhensive of how my knee would hold up.
But I'm happy to report I finished in two hours and 14 minutes (and that included the odd stop to buy water).
My trainer Dan Brockhurst ran with me and used a GPS tracker to analyse our pace and distance covered.
I was really surprised at how quickly we were able to cover ground. Dan was pleased I kept an even pace throughout.
He was also surprised I was running significantly faster than compared to the treadmill too.
 Plenty of swimming in the next week for Rebecca |
Although energy levels remained high throughout, I did notice my knee start to ache after 10 miles.
However, I gritted my teeth through the pain barrier and startled shoppers with a great shout of delight finishing in my local supermarket car park.
Needless to say I was a bit stiff the next day, but nothing stretching and swimming can't cure.
Dan wants to take me 'off-feet' next week to rest. But he also wants me to build strength through low-impact cross training.
His encouragement and guidance has been such a great confidence boost and I'm looking forward to the next stage in my training.
Find out how I get on in my next diary, and don't forget that you can chat about your own marathon experiences on our messageboards.
MMIX
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