The Physiology of Endurance Running Podcast · Dan Nash and Owain Zerilli

Road to Valencia 2025 - 7 weeks to go

·1 hr 41 min·5 clips

Jen says her rolling week hit 114 miles, the highest mileage week of her life by six miles.

Seven weeks out, they begin by trying to remember what week it actually is. One host thought the block had only six weeks left, another was happier to discover an extra week, and the whole joke becomes that counting down to Valencia is easier in long runs than in days. They catch up on a missed week, a holiday, weak internet, and a bit of illness, but the mood stays grounded because the block is still moving. The conversation keeps coming back to how the training feels right now. A recent half marathon, a session, and the tiredness of stacking hard work within three days all get compared as signs that the fitness is there even when the legs are not exactly fresh. The watch is, as usual, part of the problem. Garmin gets a long side eye, manual lapping is defended, and they complain about a session screen that shows the wrong time against the lap while nobody sounds all that surprised. The safest workaround seems to be keeping things simple and using the watch mainly for GPS and basic tracking. That leads into a fuller look at the rep itself. The third rep comes in at an average 3:39, the heart rate averages the same, and the main shift is from thinking the pace is slipping to realizing the effort is actually solid. Sunrise helps, naturally. Once the light comes up, the run feels less ugly, the perceived effort drops, and the same workout reads as more controlled than it felt in the dark. They also compare running a session alone with doing it in a pack of nine, which goes a long way toward explaining why solitude can make the same pace feel harsher. There is some proper runner math in the middle of the chat. A half marathon in 1:17 and another steady effort sitting closer to 1:19 once the jog recoveries are counted make the point that the block is working even if it is not especially fresh. Nobody pretends that is easy. What comes through instead is the usual mix of fatigue, reassurance, and small adjustments that keep marathon prep on track. The hosts keep checking assumptions aloud rather than dressing the week up as a breakthrough. That leaves the episode feeling like an honest checkpoint: not a big revelation, just runners comparing notes seven weeks from Valencia and deciding the block still makes sense.

As heard by us

Seven weeks out, the update sits with fatigue, pace, and the relief of realizing there is still a little more time.

Road to Valencia keeps its focus on the work itself: seven weeks out, a quick mix-up that briefly made it feel like six, and the small relief of knowing there is still an extra week. It lingers on the parts runners know too well, too. Fatigue. Pace.

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Why you'd press play

You want a seven-weeks-out check-in that feels like a real runner conversation, not a polished promo.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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