It's official. I'm training.
After weeks of calling it "official unofficial," "unofficial official," and refusing to call it a comeback, I'm pulling out all the stops.
I am training for the Marine Corps Marathon.
It was a bumpy road to get here but I'm grateful that my injury only took me out for a few weeks and that I'm actually ok to bounce back into training. The biggest challenge so far has been comparing myself to others. I've started ignoring Twitter on the weekends because it's hard not to panic when you see that people running the same race as you are running longer on the weekends and higher mileage for the week.
I'm ignoring all of that and I'm training for my own race...and yes, I'm going to go out and say it. I still want to go sub-4.
The last 2 weeks of training, I've just been getting in the miles...only running 4 times per week and running easy. I threw some strides into a workout last week and some hills into another. I know that hills don't make my knee feel great, so it might be best to lay off those as much as I can for the time being.
I've upped the mileage from what I normally do. I typically increase my long runs by 1 or 2 miles per week. Right now, I'm upping them by 3 miles, which is making for the last miles of each long run to be really tough but I think that that's only going to up my mental game. It's also only temporary until I get caught up which should be in another couple of weeks.
I've also been great about strength training. While my strength plan calls for 4x per week after my runs, I've only been training 3x per week since I'm not strength training after my long runs.
Right now, I'm trying to figure out how I can move from 4 runs per week to 5 without upping the weekly mileage too much. I'm thinking that next week, which will be a step back week, I'll split my mid week long runs into two different runs so that I can get 5 runs in and then move forward from there. We'll see.
Here's what training looked like last week:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 4 miles easy with 30 seconds strides followed by 5x5 goblet squats
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: 5 1/2 miles followed by 5x5 standing dumbbell shoulder presses and 3x12 standing lateral raises
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 12 miles at 9:34 average pace (15 seconds faster than last week's LR)
Sunday: 3 easy shakeout miles followed by 4x12 straight leg deadliest
Once again, lots of rest days with no cross-training. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but I've been avoiding cross training on purpose to give myself the extra rest. That's all going to change this week though and hey, I might even through in a speed workout this week. We'll see. I don't really have a plan. I know that I want to run 15 miles this weekend and run a midweek long run of about 7...the rest, I'll figure it as I go along. This training cycle is the furthest thing from how I normally train but I kind of like it. I'm just taking it day by day.
Happy Training!
After weeks of calling it "official unofficial," "unofficial official," and refusing to call it a comeback, I'm pulling out all the stops.
I am training for the Marine Corps Marathon.
It was a bumpy road to get here but I'm grateful that my injury only took me out for a few weeks and that I'm actually ok to bounce back into training. The biggest challenge so far has been comparing myself to others. I've started ignoring Twitter on the weekends because it's hard not to panic when you see that people running the same race as you are running longer on the weekends and higher mileage for the week.
I'm ignoring all of that and I'm training for my own race...and yes, I'm going to go out and say it. I still want to go sub-4.
The last 2 weeks of training, I've just been getting in the miles...only running 4 times per week and running easy. I threw some strides into a workout last week and some hills into another. I know that hills don't make my knee feel great, so it might be best to lay off those as much as I can for the time being.
I've upped the mileage from what I normally do. I typically increase my long runs by 1 or 2 miles per week. Right now, I'm upping them by 3 miles, which is making for the last miles of each long run to be really tough but I think that that's only going to up my mental game. It's also only temporary until I get caught up which should be in another couple of weeks.
I've also been great about strength training. While my strength plan calls for 4x per week after my runs, I've only been training 3x per week since I'm not strength training after my long runs.
Right now, I'm trying to figure out how I can move from 4 runs per week to 5 without upping the weekly mileage too much. I'm thinking that next week, which will be a step back week, I'll split my mid week long runs into two different runs so that I can get 5 runs in and then move forward from there. We'll see.
Here's what training looked like last week:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 4 miles easy with 30 seconds strides followed by 5x5 goblet squats
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: 5 1/2 miles followed by 5x5 standing dumbbell shoulder presses and 3x12 standing lateral raises
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 12 miles at 9:34 average pace (15 seconds faster than last week's LR)
Sunday: 3 easy shakeout miles followed by 4x12 straight leg deadliest
Once again, lots of rest days with no cross-training. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but I've been avoiding cross training on purpose to give myself the extra rest. That's all going to change this week though and hey, I might even through in a speed workout this week. We'll see. I don't really have a plan. I know that I want to run 15 miles this weekend and run a midweek long run of about 7...the rest, I'll figure it as I go along. This training cycle is the furthest thing from how I normally train but I kind of like it. I'm just taking it day by day.
Happy Training!
Oh awesome, that's great!
ReplyDeleteMy training got a late start too, and I'm trying not to get too caught up in feeling "behind" whatever other people are doing. I think you'll be fine!