The Hardest Part of My Day is Over
Mood:  happy
Topic: Marathon
I decided when I signed up for this marathon that it was important that I do overdistance training so that I could be sure I could do the race miles and still be able to move afterward. So I've been attempting to follow Jeff Galloway's training schedule for people who want to finish in 4:40 without adhering to the speed component. That is, I've been doing the same distances but not worrying about doing all the short races that he suggests for people with a time goal. This seems to be working out alright, and since I'm now at the place where I'm moving from mileages of ten miles or fewer into mileages that are of longer distances than I've done before, I gave myself until this weekend to make a final decision whether I will continue following this course or step down to the Beginner program. I'm going to continue, which means I should do the race distance once before the race and then a 28-miler before I start tapering. I think I will need this little confidence boost on race day, and as long as I take it easy--as I have been--I think it should work for me.

Today was an 8 mile run before next week's thirteen-miler. It was very smooth and I didn't have any problems with my feet, legs or lungs. The barriers today were all mental. I don't mind distance, but I hate having to put out all the effort for speed! I realized at one point today during a run segment that my arms were barely moving, so after that I concentrated each time I started a run segment on pumping my arms in order to make my legs work harder.

I have to get serious about getting up in time for early morning runs during the week. Those are my times to work on speed, and I've been short-changing them. And I will get on the bike, probably on my indoor trainer, at least one day this week. I think cross-training would improve my overall fitness. I need to reread the information I got at triathlon camp, too, on training with a heart rate monitor. If I were more rigorous about using that tool, I think my fitness would be increasing a lot more quickly.

I'm going to give myself one more full week (including next Sunday's long run) at 60% running before moving up to 4 minute run segments with a 1 minute walking recovery. Once I move up to that amount of running, I will play around with running 8 minutes with a 2 minute walk break to see whether running in longer stretches is easier mentally (it's hard to start running again once I've stopped). That might be the extent of the increases in overall running that I do, though. There's a chance I'll move up to a 9 minute run with a 1 minute walk, but I doubt it. From there, I'll need to focus on consistency, form, and whatever I'm calling speed.