Marathon Training- let's go!

Tomorrow is my first official day of marathon training for the Honolulu Marathon, on 12/14/14!  Angela and I will be flying over (Team 12!), and spending race weekend w. most of the Saucony 26 Strong team.  To say that I am excited would be an understatement!!
 
   Angela is now a certified running coach, and an amazing runner! She gets what my schedule looks like and what I will need to do to build up the mileage.  To not psych myself out by looking ahead to later weeks (hello 20 miles!),  Angela is going to send me my training plan week by week.
 The plan allows for me to build up endurance (and not get injured) by doing the majority of my runs at a 30-60 sec. pace that is slower than my goal marathon pace.  The plan consists of five days of running with one or two days free for cross-training or rest.

This is what I'm scheduled to do this week:

Monday:  4 miles easy pace (9:30-10:10)

Tuesday: XT or rest

Wednesday: 5 miles tempo- 1 mi. warm-up, 3 miles at 8:32 and 1 mile cool-down

Thursday:  4 miles easy pace

Friday: XT or rest

Saturday: 5 miles easy pace

Sunday: Long run at easy pace- 8 miles


I had a really rough running week last week, and will be excited to get on a schedule.  Schedules and calendar planning excite me!

In 2009, I found out that I had exercise-induced asthma and started using an inhaler before most of my runs.  The inhaler made me visibly and physically shaky; eventually, I stopped using it altogether.  This week however, the majority of my runs were way harder than usual, and I had shortness of breath during and after exercising.  On Friday,  after another horrible run (see below), I broke down and called my doctor who nicely got a new prescription ready for me immediately.

Here's what my running schedule looked like last week (last week before marathon training.)

Sunday: 4 miles at 7:45 pace (Neil's friend was in town, and I got to run with him...he's pretty fast!) I felt great on the run despite the faster than normal (non-racing) pace.  We ran late in the day which always seems to help!

Tuesday: 6.25 miles- My friend Karla and I ran at lunch;  I felt so sick by only the 2nd mile.  I had to stop and walk several times; my breathing was off, I felt super tired and had a hard time breathing all afternoon.

Wednesday: Solo 5 miles at 8:48 pace, still not feeling well

Thursday:  Speed workout with friends at lunch; we did a 1 mile warm-up (8:30) and 6 x 400 w. 200 meter rest/walk in between.  My average pace for the 400s was 6:40.  -  5 miles total

Friday: 6 miles- This time ran with my friend Laurie at lunch;  again, felt incredibly tired by mile 3, was wheezing, tired and had to walk.  I'm not sure what was going on, I think I had been having a more stressful week than usual,  I actually started tearing up while walking. I felt like a 3 year old,  I think I was just overtired and frustrated at not feeling well.  Called the doctor!

Saturday:  Family swim day!

Today:  Used inhaler for the first time in 5+ years;  was really shaky for first 5 minutes but, was able to finish a 5 mile run at a comfortable 8:35 pace without walking. Yay!

Here we go week one!!!