MIdnight in the Garden of Good & Evil

Marathon training has officially started. Just so you can get my title, I'm training for the Rock'n'Roll Savannah full marathon This will be my first full so I'm excited and a little nervous. I have said over and over and over, I do NOT want to run a full. But, after seeing Al Roker do it on the Today show, I thought, I could totally do this.

I'm using a training plan developed by Holly Di Giovine that is geared towards beginner marathoners. I'm also training with a group so that should make it fun!

This week's plan:

Monday: 4-6 sets of 30 second sprints with a warm up and cool down mile (done)
Tuesday: cross training 30 minutes: my plan is to bike after work
Wednesday: 4-6 sets of 2 minute repeats, recover 2-3 minutes, with a warm up, cool down mile
Thursday: cross training 30 minutes - i plan on swimming thursday morning
 *I may do a strength workout at lunch just to keeping building strength - only functional body weight movements - nothing heavy
Friday: long run (sometimes these will be saturdays, but because I'm going to cheer my friend, Lori, on at the Caine Halter Triathlon, I'm doing it friday) 45-60 minutes steady pace, yoga at night
Saturday: I'm going to try to swim for 30 minutes
Sunday: rest

Monday's workout should consist (and did) of high intensity running. This is helping increase my anaerobic threshold. On a scale of 1-10, my exertion should be a level 8-9... and it was... (faster than my 5k pace)

Wednesday's workout should consist of medium intensity running. This is pushing my aerobic threshold to a point that I could not sustain for long periods of time, say 6 miles, but could sustain for longer than 30 seconds... this is a level 7... (10k pace)

Friday long run: this is pretty self explanatory but here's where my training will probably differ from most. What I've found in my running is that I'm more comfortable running at about a 9 minute mile, but that is not something I can hold for 13 or 26 miles. I honestly can't even hold it for 3.1 miles, but we're working on that. I think my 5k is probably more like a 9:30 mile... So, when I try to slow down, it feels really uncomfortable and my hips are all crazy, I can't get in a rhythm and it just feels bleh.. SO.. i use a run-walk method that helps me keep that pace and then rest so that I can pick it up again. It's appalling to people that anyone would use this as opposed to just running the whole time but here's my experience and why I am fine with it...

first half marathon: I finished in 2:26
second half marathon using this method, i finished in 2:17

So, with a 9 minute improvement and the fact that I stayed injury free, never hit a wall once, and could still walk after the half, I'm going with the run/walk.

*if you're interested in learning more about this, check out Jeff Galloway and his method...

Normally, I use a run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute ratio but I think I want to change things up a bit. So my early long runs are going to be experiements. My goal is to train the first 10 miles at an 8/2 ratio, then change it up to see which one I like best. Either way, it'll probably even out, but what I don't want to do is start out with an 8/2, then bonk out the last 10k of the marathon, so we'll see how it goes during training. What I'd like to do at the race is the first 10 miles - 8/2, the second 10 miles - 4/1, and the last 10k - we'll see how I feel. It may end up being 3/1 or something worse!!

I'll keep you posted as I train.

The first time I used this method, I felt like an idiot running race and stopping while everyone was running. But I ended up passing the people that whizzed by me in the beginning and my final time was a 9:48 mile which was the best I'd ever done in a race (8k)...

so.... that's what's going on.

Are you training for any big races ?
What training plan do you use?
Do you have to walk in big races?