Beginning of Marathon Training

Hi Friends.

I recently decided over the holidays that it is my goal to run the Eugene Marathon on May 10, 2015, and a friend conveniently bought me a marathon training guide titled, "Marathon:  The Ultimate Training Guide" by Hal Higdon.  So I read the book cover to cover prior to signing up for the marathon, to make sure I had all the information I needed in preparation for this huge milestone!

The book was very informative, and approached every topic under the sun, including nutrition (FINALLY convinced me that after 11 years, I should start taking iron supplements to offset my vegetarian habits!), training, race-day info, etc.  Some details in the book I had already known from a few years of serving on the Portland Marathon Committee, like expo and race-day things, but a lot of the details on the actual training schedule, how many miles to run, how to run, etc. was quite new to me.  And, it's always good to have any suggestions and information you thought you knew confirmed by an expert!

I began my training program the week after I got back from New York, and have slowly been increasing my miles each week.  The training program I selected is an intermediate program, featuring medium mileage and one long run a week, in which it increases mileage two weeks and steps back one (for example, week 4 was an 11-mile run, week 5 will be 12, and then it steps back to 9 miles in week 6.  The training program also incorporates tempo runs, and shorter mileage throughout the weekdays.  I'm on week 5 and feel a bit sore, but otherwise great.

The hardest part right now is self-motivating myself to run in not-ideal running conditions.  I can't imagine, now that I live on the West Coast, not being able to run outside in the East Coast winters again.  (I learned this the hard way when I went out running in the snow, fell and tore up my knee pretty bad.)  So I think of how much more difficult it used to be when I lived back east, and that helps motivate me somewhat.  And besides, a little rain never hurt anyone! 

I made up this new saying that rings true: "If you never run in the rain you'll never know how it really feels to run in the sunshine."