Marathon Training Takes A Lot Of Prep, More Than I Realized!

One month till 26.2, I just want it to be here already.

I make this look gooooood! ;)

I’m at the point in training now where training consumes my life. I’m just shocked at how time consuming it has been to train and the planning that goes into it. What do I mean on “planning”? Well, I have to to plan routes, routes with places where I can stop to hydrate/GU/bathroom if needed. I also need to plan proper nutrition prior to the run and for the run, along with proper rest periods before/after my long runs and even on my Tuesday runs as those are now into double digit numbers. Then there is the time, today I spent nearly and hour and half just running. On the weekend when I do my long run that takes 3 hours or longer. I work two jobs; here at the radio station and at the Riverplex teaching group fitness class. Between the training and jobs I’m often finding myself saying no to things and I’m having to say no A LOT! Because if I don’t then I’m losing one of the elements that make these runs, run smoothly. It’s exhausting to say the least.

This past weekend I hit a distance PR (Personal Record) of 18 miles and shockingly it wasn’t very hard. I know you must think I’m nuts, running 18 miles not hard? No really it wasn’t as bad as I expected and it’s because of my planning. I had a great carb load the day prior, I add a nice whole grain carb and protien at each meal; breakfast, lunch, dinner and two small snacks. I got adequate amount of sleep the night prior, choosing to stay in Friday night and going to bed early. Then on the route I planned stops about every 5 miles to hydrate with either water or Gatorade and to also consume a GU. The ONLY challenging part of the run was the last few miles as the hills proved to be a little bit steeper and longer than I had anticipated.

MMMM Salty!

Are you as exhausted reading that as I was typing it? The one good thing about all of this is I am now confident that I can and will run this full marathon with out a problem, I no longer am afraid of my 20 mile run this weekend and instead I’m looking forward to owning it.

Ice Bath Time!!!

How’s your training coming? What has been your ups and downs? Have you gained the confidence on running the race?