TRAINING WHEELS SEASON 2: DAY 1 - IT BEGINS AGAIN
On October 13, 2007 I'll be running my second marathon. This time it will be a little different. I'm doing this one on my own without the benefit of training with Team in Training. Nor will I be doing any fundraising for this event. If Phoenix was a personal test for me to see if I could complete a marathon, this is the next test I am choosing to challenge myself with. Can I train myself to run a marathon? It's another lead up to the main event of personal challenges: Can I run a marathon in under 4 hours? I'm not sure this will be that marathon, but it could be. As of now I'm starting to train for the second of a 5 race plan that ends where it began - Phoenix 2009. On the way I'll make stops in Connecticut, Alaska and Illinois, but now I'm getting ahead of myself.
My official training schedule begins on June 18, but I decided that I should do a little pre-season work to make sure I show up on the 18th ready to run. So this morning I woke up at 6:00 and went for a short 20 minute jog. It sucked. I haven't done a lot of running since January. I've probably been out half a dozen times, most recently as a part of the Revlon Run Walk on the first Saturday of May. Needless to say, I'm out of shape and out of practice. About two months back I had dropped close to 20 pounds and was feeling very good. Since then I have put most, if not all, of the weight back on and am feeling it with every step.
Here's something that sucks about running your second marathon vs. running your first: you no longer have the excuse of not knowing what to expect. When training for Phoenix I never knew exactly what to expect - how my body would react to certain things for instance. I ate like a horse telling myself "I'm running a marathon - I can eat anything I want." Turns out, not so much. I ended up putting on 5 pounds by the time it was all said and done, and my snug fitting running gear on race day made that all too obvious. So while I still expect the machine to demand a ton of fuel this time around, I'm going to have to be WAY more selective in my dietary choices, especially if I want to see that 20 pounds go away again, which I do.
The good thing is that the training schedule I have set up for myself (read: stole from the book "4 Months to a 4 Hour Marathon) seems slightly more intense than the Team in Training schedule for Phoenix. What that is going to mean for the knee I hurt last time remains to be seen, and God only knows if I'll be able to keep up with it, but I'm going to give it an honest try. I'm slightly skeptical about training directly from the book, seeing as everyone is different and reacts differently to certain workouts, but I figure it's worth a shot. In addition, I'm also in the process of reading a book called "Chi Running" that a friend loaned me and it has a lot of tips about form and injury prevention that I'm going to be trying to incorporate. It's tough though - sort of like trying to speak a foriegn language at first. Feels a little unnatural despite the benefits. That's another reason for this pre-training session - to give myself time to build a foundation for some new technique.
I realize that it was sort of a bummer that I never posted a post-marathon blog to tie things up. Well, a bummer for the 2 or 3 of you that read this thing. I'm not really sure what to say about that. Hopefully I'll make the time to do a Phoenix recap, but for a variety of reasons once the run was behind me I just couldn't bring myself to talk about it any more. It's really difficult to explain, but from what a gather a fairly common occurance. I had a bit of a post-marathon let down and even now the thought of revisiting that weekend makes me feel emotionally tired, despite the fact that my memories are almost 100% positive. I'm sorry if some of you guys felt like there was no payoff for sticking with me all those months. Hopefully one of these days I'll get around to telling that part of the story.
For now, I'm looking ahead to the next chapter.
S2D1
DISTANCE: 1.88 Miles
TOTAL DISTANCE: 1.88 Miles
My official training schedule begins on June 18, but I decided that I should do a little pre-season work to make sure I show up on the 18th ready to run. So this morning I woke up at 6:00 and went for a short 20 minute jog. It sucked. I haven't done a lot of running since January. I've probably been out half a dozen times, most recently as a part of the Revlon Run Walk on the first Saturday of May. Needless to say, I'm out of shape and out of practice. About two months back I had dropped close to 20 pounds and was feeling very good. Since then I have put most, if not all, of the weight back on and am feeling it with every step.
Here's something that sucks about running your second marathon vs. running your first: you no longer have the excuse of not knowing what to expect. When training for Phoenix I never knew exactly what to expect - how my body would react to certain things for instance. I ate like a horse telling myself "I'm running a marathon - I can eat anything I want." Turns out, not so much. I ended up putting on 5 pounds by the time it was all said and done, and my snug fitting running gear on race day made that all too obvious. So while I still expect the machine to demand a ton of fuel this time around, I'm going to have to be WAY more selective in my dietary choices, especially if I want to see that 20 pounds go away again, which I do.
The good thing is that the training schedule I have set up for myself (read: stole from the book "4 Months to a 4 Hour Marathon) seems slightly more intense than the Team in Training schedule for Phoenix. What that is going to mean for the knee I hurt last time remains to be seen, and God only knows if I'll be able to keep up with it, but I'm going to give it an honest try. I'm slightly skeptical about training directly from the book, seeing as everyone is different and reacts differently to certain workouts, but I figure it's worth a shot. In addition, I'm also in the process of reading a book called "Chi Running" that a friend loaned me and it has a lot of tips about form and injury prevention that I'm going to be trying to incorporate. It's tough though - sort of like trying to speak a foriegn language at first. Feels a little unnatural despite the benefits. That's another reason for this pre-training session - to give myself time to build a foundation for some new technique.
I realize that it was sort of a bummer that I never posted a post-marathon blog to tie things up. Well, a bummer for the 2 or 3 of you that read this thing. I'm not really sure what to say about that. Hopefully I'll make the time to do a Phoenix recap, but for a variety of reasons once the run was behind me I just couldn't bring myself to talk about it any more. It's really difficult to explain, but from what a gather a fairly common occurance. I had a bit of a post-marathon let down and even now the thought of revisiting that weekend makes me feel emotionally tired, despite the fact that my memories are almost 100% positive. I'm sorry if some of you guys felt like there was no payoff for sticking with me all those months. Hopefully one of these days I'll get around to telling that part of the story.
For now, I'm looking ahead to the next chapter.
S2D1
DISTANCE: 1.88 Miles
TOTAL DISTANCE: 1.88 Miles
posted by Demps at 12:52 PM
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