Marathon Training

As you might have noticed, I’m in the middle (well, more the beginning) of marathon training.

Two years ago, I would have thought this was crazy.  I still kind of think it’s crazy, to be honest, but I hope it’s worth it.

A few people have asked me about my training plan.  I’m doing a bit of a hybrid plan, I suppose.  I am a Galloway convert, meaning that I always do a run/walk (or as Galloway says, run/walk/run) pattern.  I feel so much better after every race.  I vary my intervals (meaning how much I run versus how much I walk), but for the most part, for long runs, I’ve been running 1 minute and walking 1 minute.  For shorter runs, I tend to run 2 minutes and walk 1.  My half marathon PR was done at a run 1:30 and walk 1, so these intervals clearly haven’t hurt my time.

But for the marathon, I’m doing 1:1.

I’m not following Galloway’s training plan, however.  This is twofold.  First off, I’m a slightly more experienced runner and I know my body.  His mid-week runs are done by time.  I’m slow, and I know I need more distance than I will get in his proscribed times.  Besides, I was running more than that before starting official marathon training.  Also, I have no desire to do any longer than a 20 mile training run in the leadup to the marathon.  A lot of people like having the longer distance under their belt.  But for half marathon training, I never do more than 10, so I’m following that rule for the full marathon.

Please note – I’m not saying his plan is bad.  There are a lot of great training plans out there and different plans work for different people.

Instead, I’m following Hal Higdon’s novice 1 training program with a few tweaks.  I had to shift around the weeks due to my personal calendar – already scheduled races and travel, including the Christmas holidays.  I didn’t want to be forced to do my twenty mile run around my hometown if I didn’t have to.  I’m fairly certain I would have to circle the town twice to make that work.  So I wanted to have that under my belt before I left Maryland.  I also shifted the schedule so my weekday runs are Tues/Thurs/Fri and my long run is on Sunday.    Some weeks I may shift the Tuesday run to Wednesday, depending on how late I am at choir practice the Monday before.

Flexibility is the key to any good training schedule.  I’ve padded my schedule so if something happens, like getting sick or not being able to pull out a long run for some reason, I can work around it.  I have room for rescheduled workouts.

It’s scary to look at it all on one page. But I can do this.

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