Now that I am officially signed up for the Rock n' Roll Marathon in Seattle, I plan to spend a considerable amount of time blogging about my training. I am only running the 1/2 marathon, and I did "run" and finish this very 1/2 marathon last year with virtually no training, and at least 20 pounds more on my frame. Today, as I sat down to begin this post, I thought of what a cliche I am, to begin a journey to get healthy, and at some point run a 1/2 marathon. EVERYONE does that!
Whatever. Being a cliche is not a bad thing. Especially if it means improvement of my health! I have already discovered that blogging keeps me accountable for eating better, and exercising more, so I would like to transfer that over to my training as well. Last year, I signed up for this race at about exactly the same time. I thought to myself (even though I wasn't in very good shape then) "I have plenty of time." The time passed, and I had not put forth my best effort. At all. By some miracle (or by sheer stubbornness) I managed to finish the race.
I am happy to have a reference point for the upcoming race. Now I can set goals based on my performance last year. I would like to shave off 30 minutes from my previous time of 3h 26m, for a time of 2h 56m.
There are plenty of 1/2 marathon training programs out there, but I'm not going to hold myself to any one of those. My plan is pretty basic. 4-5 runs a week. 2 runs a week will be interval training (or fartleks) giggle, giggle. One run will be "distance," and I will aim to increase my mileage on my "distance" run by one mile per week. The remaining run or two will be maintenance runs and will slowly increase in distance, based on how long my "distance" runs are. For example, this week, my maintenance run will be 3 miles, and my "distance" run will be 4 miles.
Here is a rough outline of my schedule goals (based on distance run):
Saturday 4/3- 4 mile distance run
Saturday 4/10- 5 mile distance run
Saturday 4/17- 6 mile distance run
Saturday 4/24- 7 mile distance run
Saturday 5/1- 8 mile distance run
Saturday 5/8- 9 mile distance run
Saturday 5/15- 10 mile distance run
Saturday 5/22- 11 mile distance run
Saturday 5/29- 12 mile distance run
Saturday 6/5- 13 mile distance run
Saturday 6/12- 12 mile distance run
Saturday 6/19- 10 mile distance run
Saturday 6/26- RACE DAY
This is pretty aggressive, I know. But, if I stick to it, I have time to taper. The thought of running more than 7 miles at once is so beyond comprehension. The most I think I've ever run at once was 6 miles (and that was when I was competing in high school crew) I was in shape, but I hated running. I really began to enjoy running in college, but I never pushed myself to do any distance training.
So there you have it. I laid it all out there, and now it is up to me to stay accountable. I need to get over my tendency of signing up for races, and then not training.
yay! that is (as you say) pretty aggressive tho; when i ran that much i got injured. just don't forget to cross train, do lower back and core exercises, etc, to keep your hips healthy.
ReplyDeleteYes. I should have added the caveat that I will be listening to my body, and responding accordingly. I do not want to get injured. I just want to set the bar high, so that even if I don't make the bar, I've still come a LONG way.
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