Today marks the end of my first full month of marathon training, and I’m finishing it off feeling pretty good. I’ve finished this last week of July with an even 30 miles, my first ever. And I’ve run 111 miles in the month, the first time I’ve gone over 100. I guess it says alot that I’ve been able to feel pretty good and am ready to get in to running unknown distances in August.
I used the new training plan editor at RunningAhead.com and came up with a daily plan for myself for the training. Here is a PDF of the Training Plan I created. It’s based loosely around the Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan, with the weekend distances based on the Indy Runners program.
Over the past month I’ve learned quite a bit about pacing. It’s kinda starting to click. Do the short runs faster, and the long runs slower. I feel better if I aim to run all miles at the same pace, rather than going out as fast as I think I should and hoping that I can hang on. Being more scientific about it all. A graphic example of this is that I did a 13.1 mile run on Saturday, July 30, and I completed it in 2:02 – that was the same time I did the Mini in. But, at the Mini, I had to do some walking and hurt quite a bit because I started out way too fast for what my fitness level was at the time. I did that training run with pretty even splits, and the last 3 miles were actually each done faster than the average pace for the run, with mile 12 being the fastest of them all. I figured out what paces I “should” be running by using the McMillan Running Calculator and using my Firecracker 6 time pushed out to a 10k. So I’m doing my runs based upon how fast I am actually able to run in a race.
And I’m able to make sure I’m doing things at the right paces because I have that handy dandy Garmin on my wrist all the time. That little device is really helping me learn a lot about pacing and such. It has been well worth the purchase price!
For the past two weeks I’ve been doing my Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday runs before work. That has meant waking up at 4:00 – 4:15 AM and running in the complete dark. That has been a weird experience to get used to. I’ve been running with a Mini MagLite in my hand, a reflective hat, and reflective band around my ankle with flashing red LEDs. It’s still been pretty humid in the mornings, but it’s better than the 100+ heat indexes and bright sun that I’ve avoided by not running in the afternoons. I don’t know that I’ll keep this up when the temps break, but it’s been a nice change while the weather has been so oppressive.
Oh. I signed up to run the Emerald City Half Marathon on September 4 in Dublin, Ohio. That puts me almost exactly 2 months out from the Monumental Marathon, so I should get a pretty good idea of what sort of time to expect.