Week Six - Philadelphia Marathon Training

I earned a 'Road Apple Award' for completing both the Garden Spot Village half marathon and the Bird-in-Hand half marathon

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Tuesday - 30 minute recovery run, core exercises 15 minutes, leg exercises 15 minutes

Wednesday - Intervals (15 min warmup, 3 min running, 90 sec rest X5, cool down

Thursday - Intervals (10 min warmup, 10 min running, 90 sec rest X3, cool down

Friday - 5k Race

Saturday - 150 minute long run (half marathon race)

Sunday - 1 mile run + walking for a total of 30 minutes

Got a little ahead of myself last week thinking it was halfway to marathon day and that's actually inaccurate, I'm on week 6 of 16. That relieves some pressure. I'm trying to trust the process but man it seems like all I do is intervals...so I guess it's a good thing they are no longer my least favorite item on the training plan. Instead now I dread body-weight exercises which I admittedly have been switch out for a full body strength class when it's on my plan.

Again this week, I completed all of my runs in the morning and its such a positive change in my schedule. It's not hard to reason that the earlier in the day you check things off your to-do list, the sooner you can relax but still I couldn't peel myself out of bed early enough to run before work. I generally haven't had time to do the strength part of my workouts in the morning but its easy to get that done in the evening. I had some time this week to take a nice evening walk just for some fresh air and to get some more movement. Since I'm a little worried that this time based training is lower mileage, the extra walks help to increase my time on feet to supplement training. I've also been doing some extra cross training in the form of paddle boarding with is a great full body workout. After several years of saying I'd like to get a paddle board, I finally bit the bullet and got one a few weeks ago. I've been using it as much as possible before the weather gets colder.

This past weekend was one of my favorite race weekends of the year, it was Bird-in-Hand half marathon and 5k. On Friday night, my goal for the 5k was to keep it under 30 minutes and my time was 29:04. My long run for Saturday was to be 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours) I finished the half marathon in 2:27 which was right on target. I was really relieved to feel good after finishing. My last two races (June and last weekend) resulted in dehydration and feeling really sick after the race. I focused on hydrating Friday and Saturday morning. It also think its somewhat helpful that I'm getting used to morning running. On Saturday morning, instead of getting up at the last possible minute to get to the race on time, I woke up around 5 which gave me time to relax with coffee and watch some mindless TV before getting ready. The nice part of a local race is that we left the house at 7:10 and I was at the start line at 7:16. I then decided to get in the very long bathroom line but I went to the bathroom and was ready to start by 7:25. There were plenty of times that I could have pushed and run faster but it likely would have been a 'fly and die' situation. It's taken time but I think I've finally reached the point where I'm better at maintaining a pace instead of going out at an unsustainable pace.

I earned a 'Road Apple Award' for completing both the Garden Spot Village half marathon and the Bird-in-Hand half marthon.