Marathon Training

^^ Taken during our last half marathon.

If you've been noticing, running has been a constant topic around here lately. I've mentioned it before—I have always been a runner. I took some time off from running from mid 2011 to now (because life kind of got in the way), but recently it's been something that I've really enjoyed again.

Ever since I was little kid, I told myself I wanted to run a marathon with my mom. She is ultimately inspiring to me in every way... not just in the fitness realm. She's run three marathons (including Boston), and countless other races. After years and years of saying, "Mom, someday we're going to do a marathon together,"—this year we are going to make it happen. In fact, on October 13, 2013, we are running The City of Trees Marathon. It's a local Boise marathon that runs through our little city, and from what I've heard, it's a great race.

Now, I've trained for half marathons before using a tried-and-true program online (by Hal Higdon), so when Mom and I decided on this race, I went back to his site for a marathon training schedule. I selected his Novice 2 program because it is designed for someone who has experience running long-distance, but may or may not have run a marathon before. The other novice programs are for those who don't have experience running, and the intermediate/advanced are for those who have run multiple marathons and who are looking to improve their time. Overall, Novice 2 seemed like the best approach. Here's our 18-week marathon training schedule:

It should be noted that I did modify weeks 11, 13 and 15, which were originally 18, 19 and 20 miles (respectively). I understand that most people can run a max of 20 miles during a training run and then just go crank out 6.2 more on the actual race day to get to 26.2 miles... but for me, that's a whole extra hour of running, and I want to have a higher max-distance under my belt before the actual race. Also, if you're wondering the difference between a "run" and "pace," the "run" is just a normal training run at whatever speed you wish (for me during training it's usually a 10-minute mile). The "pace" runs suggest you run the miles listed  (ex: 5 m pace) at "race pace," and since I usually run races between an 8:30 and 9-minute mile, that's how fast I would run those 5 miles.

By the end of our training & after the race—if we stick to this schedule exactly (we usually end up running more than this)—we will have run 496 miles. Holy moses.

As you can see, our start date for this 18-week program was this last Monday, so we're already 5-days in. My mom and I will be running our mid-week training separately, and then getting together for our long runs on the weekends. It's going great so far, and I think this next 18-weeks is going to go quick, quick, quick! Let's cross our fingers for zero injuries along the way and lots of good conversations (my mom and I talk nonstop during our runs)! City of Trees, here we come!

PS> Hey Marnie (yes, Sister, I'm talking to you), you know you want to join us, right? Come on!