Training To Run My First Marathon!!!

Hello friends! I hope everyone is feeling Marvelous! I know I am! Ready to tackle this week!!!

Well, if I would have waited a few more days it would have been a whole month since my last post. I don't know how, but this summer has flown by for us. The kids go back to school in a few weeks and we have a lot to do in those weeks! It has been a busy summer with work, house stuff (um 3 weeks with no AC was not so much fun - no worries, we have a new one now) and Jay (my oldest) started running cross country. So, we've been all over the place.

Ok, well, I think I'm going to do things a little differently for awhile here at my little piece of the internet. I have been thinking a lot about where my career, life and goals have led me and I have a few things that I think I've finally gotten the courage to talk about. In the next few weeks, I'm going to share some personal physical challenges I have gone through, as well as, my thoughts on overcoming these challenges. I'm also going to journal more here. Tony and I have made the craziest decision to run our first marathon! Yeah, me, the girl that hated running a little over 2 years ago has decided to 1) completely fall in love with running and 2) act like a crazy person and complete a full 26.2. I have rules first and foremost in this crazy training plan though. I refuse to wreck myself, I will follow a plan (I'm tweaking a plan to suite my already crazy life), I will fuel myself properly, I will rest when I need it and I will (hopefully) not lose a toenail. Please don't let me lose a toenail…

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I really want to share this journey here to help others, but to also keep record of this experience with Tony. I love the idea of journals, but I always seem to let them go after awhile. Also, this will keep me honest with myself so I stay on track.

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So, our race is in late October and it is FLAT! We have 15 weeks until the big day! We looked all over for a race that would suite us. This one is a perfect time of year and hopefully will be easier on my legs being that it's flat, so I can teach Boot Camp the follow Tuesday like I normally do. The weather should be perfect and it's a paved trail, so that will be nice. Hopefully the leaves with be at their peak time to change. It's not too far from where we live and we will be doing some of our longer training runs there before hand.

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We've been running between 3-7 miles on our runs for the last month. We typically run 3 times a week with cross training done twice a week (I teach boot camp and yoga along with working out with some clients, so I get quite a bit of cross training). The biggest thing I learned from running the half last fall was how beneficial yoga is in my recovery. It really is the perfect complement to my running. So, I sneak in yoga whenever I can including taking breaks from life to release my inner yogi if only for 15 minutes sometimes. I feel renewed and revived when I do, so I will continue to do that as my training continues.

So, here's the breakdown on last week…

Monday - cross trained/HIIT
Tuesday - 7 miles at Suwanee Greenway, taught boot camp
Wednesday - cross trained/upper body strength training
Thursday - taught boot camp, yoga
Friday - cross trained/HIIT/core work
Saturday - 9 miles Suwanee Greenway
Sunday - 3 mile walk, yoga

We actually didn't get in the 3 runs we would have liked to have gotten in last week. Tony was under a HUGE deadline and well, that's life. So, you roll with it. The walk yesterday felt amazing on my legs. I really needed it and I was happy that my legs felt completely recovered after the run. That 9 miles was brutal though. The humidity was awful, the air was thick and the heat was unbearable. However, we played it smart, walked when we needed to, drank our water and pedialyte (I will talk more about our fuel during runs when we get into needing more) and then took the time afterwards to cool down and refuel (especially our salts).

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I think we are all caught up for today. Any thoughts and/or suggestions would be appreciated. Anyone else ever done anything outside of their comfort zone with working out? Running a marathon is one of those things I said I would never do…


*While I am an ISSA certified personal trainer, this is a journal of my own experience based on my fitness level. You should always consult a physician before starting a new new exercise program.