Monday, June 9, 2014

And So It Begins....

Training for Marathon #4 that is! (And 5 but I mean I figure NYCM is only a few weeks after so there isn't much ADDITIONAL training - right?) 

Chicago Marathon Week 1 has commenced - with me staying in bed and pushing my workout to tonight due to the torrential downpours. 

Starting with a bang. Oops. Damn rain. 

I am going this one without a coach and without any crazy lofty goals. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to PR (4:26) but I am not going sub 4 or bust this time. I am focusing on speed and all that and plan to follow the structure based from last year with my coach but I am more concerned with continuing to develop as a runner. If I happen to get in under 4 hours then fantastic but honestly this is a journey and I am not sure if I will be there then. As I learned last year (the first year I ran a marathon and then a few more) the marathon is a beast - and learning to pace one is tricky business. 

Last year sucked the life and fun out of it all for me and I semi hated running by the time it was time to run (and a DNF in the goal marathon didn't exactly lift my spirits).

Things I need to work on are getting my stomach in better shape (seriously would love to get to the point where I don't consider it "just the way it is" that I have to stop in 90% of my runs for the bathroom) and proper fueling. 

I have a list of things I want to test out for the next several weeks - including fueling with "whole" foods vs Gu and Chomps and such during my runs as well as testing out GenUCAN which I have heard has worked wonders for a lot of people with stomach issues. 

So here we are the beginning of another 18 week journey to 26.2 and I cannot say I am EXCITED per say (good bye to some of my weekend social life), but I am ready to get this party started. 

My plan more or less is going to be 5 days of running, 1-2 cross training sessions and 2-3 strength training sessions. A lot but I think my biggest mistake was losing the strength sessions during training last time. I definitely deteriorated as a runner so I am going to make them a priority. I will be posting weekly updates (contain the excitement) and can't wait to see how I progress through this cycle.

I know a lot of others have begun training as well - so a collective WOO HOO to everyone else out there. Here goes nothing!!! 



6 comments:

  1. Me toooo! I began training for Chicago yesterday! Exciting stuff! I look forward to following you in your journey :)

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    1. I'm excited and apprehensive at the same time! Here we go :)

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  2. wow 2 marathons in a month or so? That's awesome! I'm still debating on a fall marathon. I did NYc last year and will again in 2015, but don't know if I should do a marathon this year or a few half marathons. I want to get faster and don't know which option would be better for that.

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    1. I will say one of the things I disliked about last year was I lost speed. A lot. I focused on distance throughout (3 full marathons, 1 ultra - and a million halfs!) I still am working on getting the speed back. So that is my focus this year to not lose what I am gaining back in speed.

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  3. Yay! Me too! It'll be my first marathon :)

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    1. Congrats!!! that is awesome, enjoy every bit of training - the journey to the first is an awesome one!

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