Second Half Marathon Training

After the great experience I had at my first half marathon last month at Space Coast, I’ve decided to take on another one! I may be crazy, but hey, we all are a bit I think. Space Coast was a bit rough at times, but I have to say, I’ve been wanting to do another one in early 2012. Within a day or two of Space Coast, I was already thinking about it. In fact, I’m already registered for the next one. I’ll be doing the Orange Blossom Half on March 4^th in Tavares.

I’m already getting a training plan in place for the race. Originally, I was just going to wait until January 1^st to begin my training, but I’ve now decided to start on Christmas day. Since I’m going to be running this one, I need to get the miles when I can. It will have been about a month since Space Coast, so that’s a good rest period for my body (well, I hope since I had said I wasn’t going to do any hard training the rest of 2011 J ). The first week of the training won’t be too hard anyway, so I’m not too concerned about pushing too much.

Here’s the plan I’m going to go with after some advice from friends who are more experienced runners.

Week	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1	CT	off	3 miles	CT	3 miles	off	4 miles
2	CT	off	3 miles	CT	3 miles	off	6 miles
3	CT	off	3 miles	CT	3 miles	off	7 miles
4	CT	off	3 miles	CT	3 miles	off	8 miles
5	CT	off	4 miles	CT	3 miles	off	6 miles
6	CT	off	4 miles	CT	4 miles	off	4 miles with MM
7	CT	off	4 miles	CT	4 miles	off	8 miles
8	CT	off	3 miles	CT	3 miles	off	10 miles
9	CT	off	4 miles	CT	4 miles	off	6 miles
10	CT	off	3 miles	CT	2 miles	easy walk	off

I’m still up for any further advice to make my training as good as possible. My longest run will be 10 miles which is okay. Not too concerned about the last 5k, I figure worst case scenario is that I can simply walk most of it. But, I doubt that will happen less for potentially more rest breaks. The ten miler on week 8 will be a good test on where I am at that time with the run-walk-run. I’m excited about the race already and it’s more than two months away!

1/2 Marathon Training Update: Week 5

As I enter my second month of training, I thought an update on how things were going was in order. I would be onto week six at this point, but I got sick about week two, so I restarted the week that I only made it partially through. That's okay though, as the Space Coast 1/2 Marathon isn't until the end of November, so more than enough time to repeat weeks when necessary.

I hit my longest and hardest long mile day to date this past weekend. Saturday called for 7 miles and up until that point, I hadn't done anything longer than 10k distance wise. I was both excited and a bit nervous heading out the door at just after 7am that morning. The first 5k went easily, as my body is so used to that distance now. By the time I hit mile four, I was feeling a bit lower on energy, but I downed a Gu energy gel and figured I'd be good to go. The fifth mile is when the real mental push began. I not only started to have tired legs, but my bladder was less than thrilled about continuing on. Really took a lot of pushing to make it those last two miles. The last mile had me imagining how great it was going to be to complete the 7 miles and get off my feet. My music always helps me along, but hitting that pavement for long periods of time really does take some mental stamina. I made it through the full 7 miles and couldn't have been happier about it. It really was an accomplishment, the start of many more to come as well. 

I picked up my first foam roller a little over a week ago and have slowly begun to incorporate it into my after workout training routine. I will admit though, I'm not completely comfortable with it as of yet, and I already know I don't stretch nearly enough before or after my training sessions. That of course isn't good, so I'm making sure to remind myself that my time stretching is just as important as the workout itself. Hopefully, I'll get it better ingrained into my brain in the coming weeks so that it will come more as a second nature thing to me.

Over the weekend, I ended up talking with a fellow walker at Track Shack about race walking. He is a race walker and told me that I would get much better results from my walking if I used the race walking technique. The biggest thing that got me is that he said that I would be much faster race walking. So, I'm going to try to start using the technique during this week's walking days. I'd love to see a faster pace for sure. I may never win anything in the races that I do, but while finishing is the most important thing of all, challenging myself to do each mile quicker is always something on my mind.

1/2 Marathon Training: Week One

Last week, I started my training for my first 1/2 marathon. My goal race in mind is the Space Coast 1/2 Marathon in November here in Florida. After looking around a bit online for a good walking training program, I ended up settling with one from the www.marathonwalking.com website. The training plan is 14 weeks long and incorporates cross-training into the mix. Since the Space Coast 1/2 is 20 weeks out, I figured that I would repeat some of the weeks so my training would be longer. That works out fine for me considering it would take into account any issues that might crop up along the way. So, each week would consist of walking on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Saturday being the long mileage day. My cross-training days would be on Sunday & Wednesday. Friday will always be a rest day, and Monday I figured I would play with between it being a rest day or a cross-training day.

Sunday started off well, with a nice bike ride in the morning. I love cycling, so that is more than likely going to be my primary cross-training workout. Since I felt so good after that workout, I decided that I didn't need Monday off, so I would again do a cycling session. Tuesday was my first power walk workout on the plan and called for 3 miles which went pretty well. I didn't hit the pacing I wanted, but I was around the 15 minute per mile mark which is still good. Wednesday was another cycling workout. This is when I started to feel some exhaustion coming on. Alas, I thought I'd be okay and didn't hesitate to head out the door and onto my bike. By Thursday's 3-mile walk, I knew my energy was lacking. I really felt it the moment I woke up that morning. And, this showed in my 15:51 per mile pacing. My body was telling me that it needed to rest. Thankfully, I did just that on Friday.

I have come to the conclusion that I really might need those two rest days during my marathon training. So, despite the fact that I'd like to be working out six days a week, I'm going to more in tune with what my body is telling me. Friends told me that marathon training takes a lot more out of you than just standard workouts, but of course, I had to learn that for myself. Guess that's the way things are sometimes.

This week, I'm taking Monday and Friday off per the training schedule. If there are weeks down the line where I have the energy and can workout on Monday, that's great and I'll do it, but if not, that is okay. Our bodies need rest to succeed just as much as the actual training miles we put in.

Also, I have a goal set for before my first 1/2 in November. I'm going to be doing the Miracle Miles 15k on September 24th in Orlando. This is a great in between race as recommended by some dailymile/facebook running friends. I am already looking forward to it as it’s going to be my next race event.