Week 4: Marathon Training

Happy Monday, again! I hope you all had a great weekend and are ready to show this week who’s boss. I sure am – I have an OOBER busy week at work, but have my workout classes booked, runs planned (thanks, Coach!), a fridge full of food, and managed to clean all my laundry (which is 88% running clothes)! No excuses!

So, let’s get right into how this week went.

[ week 4 / 26 weeks until 26.2 ]

Sunday – Sunday RUNday! Long run (7.5 miles planned, actually ended up doing 7.78) – first 1:00:00 easy (10 min/mile), last 15:00 moderate breathing. Last half mile was challenging and my legs felt heavy. Though the first 3-4 miles seemed to go by quickly, I was definitely feeling “done” at the 7.5 mile mark. The weather was pretty nice today, nice and overcast.

Monday – 30 min/3miles – on the treadmill. I truly avoid the treadmill at all costs. I’d rather run in pouring rain, even snow. But, I was doing a Gold’s Fit class at the gym and in order to get there on time I squeezed in my run right before at the gym… at least it was a short and slow 3 miles. I feel like I run weird on a treadmill.

The Gold’s Fit (like Crossfit) class was HARD today. I mean, I hung in there but was seriously struggling. I’ll admit, the push-ups really got me. Here’s what we did –

5x (15 box jumps, 20 goblet squats, 20 push ups, 20 Kettle Bell swings, 20 ring rows, 20 hollow rocks)

We had 6 min for each set, so did this for 30 min.

Tuesday – Tempo run – 42:00/4.62 miles/9:06/mi. Butt kicks, high knee warm-up, 7x (1:00 hard, 1:00easy, 2:00 hard, 2:00 easy). Time went by pretty fast since I was so focused on time, but it was a challenge. My “hard” times ended up being around 8:00/mi, “easy” was about 10:00/mi. My chest was REALLY sore from Gold’s Fit (nothing was too sore to effect my running gait or anything, I just noted in my journal that I was very sore in the chest area… thanks push-ups!)

Wednesday – Easy run – 40:00/4.08/mile (about 10:00/mile pace). It was hot today, 88 degrees (I shouldn’t complain yet). Did an evening run, noted that I was dodging lots of kids on bikes. Had a little tiny twinge in my knee after a few miles but I stretched and that went away. Lots of hills this run, too. One of those days where I felt speedy… caught myself going about 8:30/mile to start and had to slow myself down.

Thursday – 5miles/47:27 – took a few miles to get in the groove on this run, quite the opposite of yesterday, felt like I was going 8:00/mile but really was doing about 11:00/mile to start… (blame the watch!) but after a mile or two I got into it and found my steady pace. It actually turned out to be a nice run and a lovely night.

Friday – Today it was really hard to wake up – alarm went off at 4:30AM for a spin class. I was still sore from Gold’s Fit and had just finished that 5mile run last night, but drug myself out of bed and I’m so glad I did. I LOVE my spin classes. It felt great to get my sweat on and jam out. Needed some coffee afterwards knowing I had work then another 5 mile run later that evening.

The run was tough – I was pretty tired and so busy that I didn’t eat as much as I probably should have that day. The run felt OK at first, but was ready to be done at about 3miles. I pushed through and, as usual, was glad I did. I felt good afterwards, especially since I knew that the next day I had a rest day!

Saturday – Recovery day! I ate lots of delicious food and rested up! Lots of couch-lounging!

Total miles for the week – 29.48

I hope you all had a great week and I can’t wait to update you on THIS week already! I’m feeling really excited and optimistic about my training and am truly enjoying the journey to 26.2. Nobody said it would be easy (and it’s not), but it really pushes you to stay on top of your game, be accountable, make NO excuses, and dig deep!

THANK YOU again to Andrew Simmons with Lifelong Endurance for providing me with these workouts and guiding me through my training. If you guys are interested, feel free to click for details and reach out to them if you have any coaching needs! I know I’ve said this before, but I’m learning more and more through this process that coaching isn’t just for professionals or people wanting to Boston Qualify… I’m just your ordinary gal who loves running… and I have already benefited SO, so much from having a coach.

I hope to show you what it’s like through my weekly workouts but please feel free to let me know, too, if you have any other questions about how coaching/training/anything else is going! I LOVE having you guys to talk about these things with. The online running community has been SO incredibly motivating and encouraging and I hope to do the same! Thank you all!

Thanks for reading!