Let the (serious) training begin!

I am ready, I can go for it! The last few weeks I have prepared myself mentally and physically to follow my marathon training plan. I do three runs a week plus some cross-training, my weekly kilometres are around 40k, I feel comfortable with the variation of intervals, tempo, long runs and trails and I am disciplined to do my stretches. Sounds easy, right?

I have been training in my comfort zone and luckily not been travelling too much lately. But the last week was different and a two day travel, leaving home at 4 am and returning next day at midnight, demonstrated me how easily my training balance can be disturbed. I went for morning run in beautiful Vannes and enjoyed the change of scenery, kept my runs constant three but it took me one full day to recover and ended up skipping the cross-training the day after. It is a good reminder for me that I need to plan my trainings properly if something breaks the daily routine, but I am glad I got that reminder now and not one of those days when I have a hard training ahead.

By building my training routine during the last few weeks I have learned my weaknesses. And I got a reminder that I hate strength training. This hit me really hard as I know it is really important with the kilometers I plan to run to stay healthy, but I just hate it. I have never ever liked strength training and for that reason I have always avoided it. And now I volunteerly plan to torture myself with that horror weekly. Therefore to force myself a bit, every time I skip the strength part of my weekly training, I donate additional 15€ for my charity project.

So the plan is ready, tomorrow morning I start my day with the first training of my official training plan. I have about 650 km ahead during 16 weeks, feels like a lots of fun & pain. May the force be with me.

The joy of business travelling is to see the sunrise in new cities, this time in Vannes in France.

Reality check

I must say after my great runs last weeks, I was hoping if not expecting the success to continue. Well I can tell you there are no two weeks alike and after the sunshine comes the rain, or whatever. There was no rain though, but serious reality check to remind me that this project is not going to be easy.

Sunday morning I headed for the long run, looking forward to see how it goes this time. Instead of going flat along Weser, I decided to head up to the hills instead. Whether it was the additional altitude but after 23 km and 2h10min, I could conclude my body is made to run 18-19 km and anything beyond that hurts. Not just a little bit but seriously to make me consider to stop. And considering that it is just about the half way of the marathon, it feels a bit scary. I know the point of long runs is to get your body used to the purpose, still if the Sunday's experience is going to repeat the next 18 weeks, I will have a challenge to motivate myself to head out of the door.

At the positive side, my morning run routine is going well and I begin to enjoy the early morning runs with fresh air hearing only birds singing (and neighbours rooster) and slowly waking up my muscles. I'm certainly not fast that time of the day, but it feels good. I need to get the tempo a bit higher, but I'm sure it comes. I included also some hill training this week and despite that it is hard, I like it. 

So all in all, it wasn't that bad training week. I only need to find a way to lenghten my runs beyond 20k and it will be just fun.

When running fast feels good

Let's face it; I have always been a slow runner. Running has always been easy sports for me, I can collect kilometers with little pain and recover fast. But as soon as I should run fast, my legs feel like iron blocks I have to drag with me. So six months ago I would have never believed that today I go for 17 km run, with average speed 30 sec/ km faster than I used to and I still enjoy every moment of it.

So what has changed? I have not trained more quantity than before but I have changed the quality significantly. When starting my preparation for the half marathon in Hannover, I decided to follow the half marathon training plan from Furman Institute. This time I actually followed it, not just had it available... The plan looks relatively easy in terms of kilometers (and honestly that was my motivation to follow it as with work and family, I don't have endless hours for training) -easy up to the moment I calculated the running speed for each training by translating miles and kilometers back and forth. It turned out I should increase my speed heavily, something I knew would be far from easy for me. Motivated by the low training hours though I decided to give a try to it. No need to lie, the first few trainings were painful, intervals, tempo and long runs, all of them were a fight forward. But after while it got easier and somehow my body just accepted that it had to like the new speed.

I am so pleased and excited to see this change in my running; I feel great despite the long run and am looking forward to my next lessons on the road. Today was 17 km with average speed 5:26/km, it sets great baseline for my marathon training. More this kind of runs and I will feel high whole summer from the endorphins!

Time to get serious

After Couple of weeks easy going training after the half marathon in Hannover it is slowly time to get back in the serious training mood. I had first long run today. Well, creating my training plan for marathon, I realise long run is a relative term. I did today 15 km run, which was long for my half marathon, for marathon my long runs starts from 16 km... Time to do the mental adjustment.

Another adjustment I need to do is with my eating during the run. I am not used to eat or drink while training, which was also not necessary for the half and the shorter trainings. So today my objective was to have the first step with food during running and see how my body reacts. I found an energy gel from cup board, so that seemed like a good idea to start. I decided to have it around 8k with some water - and the last 7k I ran with a roller coaster in my stomach. So need to do some research how to handle that part.

I have also predrafted my training plan. I will follow my philosophy of less quantity more quality. Normally it is adviced to train around 800 km for marathon, my plan is about 650 km spread over 16 weeks. Additionally I plan to cross train 1-2 times a week, to keep it more fun and hopefully help to prevent injuries. This plan is actually direct copy of Furman Institute's marathon plan published in Runner's World magazine.

I will therefore start my official training in early June, meanwhile I aim to build the weekly kilometers to 30+ and lenghten the long runs up to 22k.