Marathon Training: Episode 2

Marathon #2 in the making!! We have 2-1/2 months to increase stamina and do this 26.2 thing BETTER, baby. Hoover Dam December 15 is what we are talking about.

Today was my first long run after Pocatello Marathon, a month later. (Two weeks ago I did a half marathon race, and last week a 5K race, both of which I placed in my division, yay!) IT FELT SO GOOD!!!!!! Aaahh I love long runs. I really prefer distance over speed runs. Something about it just makes my soul come alive. My father-in-law has mentioned how he has some spiritual time during long runs and I just think its so true. When I go out for multiple hours, I feel a certain POWER. It's not anything to do with myself or my athleticism, it's more like realizing the POWER of the Human Machine, the POWER of Dedication, Consistency, Hard Work Paying Off. It's a supernatural power because it really shows how good works pay off, how God is there to back up our goals, and just the Splendor of God's ultimate creation. I don't know if I am explaining it right, maybe this sounds really cheesy but WOW, It's just something amazing.

You can watch a lecture on ultramarathon running here where he goes into this same topic, the four levels of running; spiritul being the ultimate level to reach but it takes several hours - see, I may only see the tip of the iceberg here because I have only ever done 4-1/4 hours. What he is talking about is running for the better part of an entire day, through the night, etc.. which just amazes me. Maybe one day I would do that. Actually I believe as I write this, that this guy Michael Arnstein is doing a 132-mile run in Greece called the Spartathalon. (Rychen has ran for 10-1/4 hours and is going to repeat that 50 miler in just a few weeks!!)

But I digress.

Anyway I wanted to talk about my goals for this second marathon. Rychen and I have the same goal - under 4 hours. (we won't talk about how many races Rychen has done with that goal..heehee) We are doing the same training schedule, found here. I really like this training schedule, first of all because look at all the TALK there, before the numbers appear. Yeah that's important talk. You gotta know WHAT you are doing, and HOW to workout before you just go check-off a list of numbers, what Rychen used to do.
But what's different about this plan is (a) its 5 days a week (it actually says 6 but we are cutting out one of the easy runs so we can keep the Sabbath) and (b) it breaks up the long run into 2 days, so you are actually covering 20-30 miles EVERY weekend.

So this plan is a little optimistic for me, for both those reasons, plus the fact that there are 4 important workouts every week where I have to watch my timing and run at a certain speed. I am used to running 4 days a week, 3 days of comfortable running and just one day of pushing it. and always a rest day before the long one. Now I get to push it 3 days a week, including the day before the long run! I wasn't sure how it was going to go, and this week I actually ended up doing 3 days of up-tempo running immediately before my 16 miler... But it worked out great and it was effective - my long run felt like I was doing a marathon since I wasn't fresh.

It only makes sense to me, if you want to get better at 26.2, you have to practice 26.2.. you have to be familiar with that distance.  Well I am not reaching that long exactly in the training plan but over the weekend YES with these two runs put together back-to-back...

Anyway I am blabbing.. If you made it this far, I thank you. but in honestly I am hoping to attract some googlers and strangers to my blog, as I go into certain topics :) I need to expand my running social circle and get some inspiration.

but yeah, I am EXCITED! I love love running.