Trail Running Blog

Marathon Training Week 1

I am happy to be able to say that I have the first week of my first marathon training in the books. I have been anticipating this for quite some time now. I never thought I would doing something like this when I started running again a little over a year ago. I randomly signed up for a local 5K and realized how long it’s been since I’ve experienced a race. I worked my way up to running a half marathon (and fast), which I have to say is pretty tough. But now I’m going to try and double that with a full marathon? What am I thinking? We’ll see how it goes.

The workouts for this week (and the whole plan actually) was pretty intense, including some pretty long easy runs, a tempo run with a pace I would have thought was way too fast for me and a long run that I’ve only did a few times before.

I felt pretty good completing Tuesday’s easy 9 miles since that was about the distance I usually ran for my long runs on the weekend. I was able to hit under the goal pace too: 8:02-8:32. Thursday’s tempo run was scary because I felt that the pace was a little too fast for me, but I stayed focused and hit well below the goal pace: 6:39. Sunday’s long run was another accomplishment. I ran the 8 miles very comfortably and when it was time to pick up the pace, I had more than enough energy to do so.

My mileage for this week hasn’t been this high since the beginning of the year and according to the training program, it’s going to go higher before it goes back down. But this is a good thing. I really don’t want to step on the line in June and not be able to complete the marathon because I did not build up enough miles to successfully complete the race. That is always going to be a fear of mine: DNF.

I’m sure I could go out and run a marathon right now if I really wanted to, but what I’m trying to do is run it at the pace that all my training tells me I should be able to run. It’s going to be hard to be able to maintain this focus and determination, but it’s definitely possible. I actually have a 5K this weekend, a wedding the next and a half marathon the weekend after. I’m going to need to re-prioritize some things to make sure I get all my miles in, but I know I can do it. I have to..

Monday: ~2.75 mi, 22:46
Tuesday: 9 mi, easy: 1:11, 7:53 min/mile
Wednesday: 4 mi, easy
Thursday: 7 mi: 3 mi warmup/cooldown; 4 mi tempo: 25:00, 6:15 min/mile
Friday: 8 mi, 1:05, 8:07 min/mile
Sunday: 12 mi long, 1:30, 7:30 min/mile; 8@7:50, 4@7:02

Total miles: 42.75 miles
Avg HR: 153
Calories Burned: 5,042
Total Pushups: 424