Thursday, December 29, 2011

Marathon training

I decided to plan out my preparation from the moment I officially signed up for Vancouver's BMO Marathon. That has given me 25 weeks to prepare, and I'm now 3 weeks in. The past two winters I haven't had any particular running goal, and so weather and life and the inaccessibility of trails have conspired to push running out of my routine for days and weeks on end. This year it's a different matter entirely.

This year I'm running no matter what. I haven't missed a scheduled run yet and I'm thrilled. But gosh, a lot of creativity, variety and determination are required! Once I get started, though, I'm good. Here are my last few runs. You can see how much things have varied!

DistanceTempRun TypeConditionsFootwear
8 km-2ºCRoadCompact snowMinimus
23 km0ºCRoad/trailCompact snow / asphaltMinimus
3.5 km-5ºCRoadAsphaltMiminus
7 km-7ºCRoadSnowing / windyMerrell Lithe Glove
5 km-3ºCTrailDeep snowMerrell Lithe Glove
16 km-1ºCRoadIcy asphaltMinimus
7 km+1ºCTrailDeep slush / rainingMerrell Lithe Glove
5 km+2ºCRoadAsphaltVibram Five Fingers
2 km+2ºCRoadAsphaltBare feet

The holidays have given me plenty of time to run and to think and read about running. I've resolved to keep the pace on the majority of my runs very slow, and to push my weekly mileage higher. I've only run more than 50k a week a few times. I need to get my mileage to that level soon (I'm in the 40's now), and then keep raising it to the 70 - 80 km/week level by early April.

One hundred and twenty-eight days and counting.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:07 am

    Will it be a barefoot marathon?

    Deborah

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wohoo! You go girl! I look forward to reading your progress. Here's to an injury free 2012!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Not sure about barefoot, Deborah. I won't have very long after the snow goes to get my soles accustomed to long road runs. I'll try a long run mid-April barefoot and see how that goes and make the call then.

    ReplyDelete

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