Marathon Training Starts Today!

Today is the start of my 16-week training program for the Richmond Marathon. I will be following the program laid out in the book The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer. It was highly recommended by friends and having read it a number of times (5+), so I think it will be a good program. My goal is just to finish. I have no time goal since just completing it is a large enough challenge and per the advice of the book – I don't want to turn what could be a great victory into a failure just because I missed an arbitrary time by a few minutes.

A quick overview of my next 16 weeks is that I will run 4 times per week. Two short runs, a medium run, and a long run. This first week it is 3, 4, 3, 5 (all in miles). From there it increases each week following the 10% rule which is that the mileage should not increase more than 10% each week so that the body can adjust to the increased strain. The peak week where I do the most miles is 5, 8, 5, 18. That is the most we ever run in a week and is two weeks before the marathon. The last two weeks is about tapering to make sure the muscles are ready for the big day.

Where am I at right now?

Physically I can run 3 to 4 miles four times a week at a ~12min/mile pace and feel comfortable afterwards. I had been running a faster pace as you may have noted in some of my past race reports, but I typically felt terrible afterwards so it was not sustainable for the amount of miles I need to do. By the end I probably will be running faster, but this isn't about the time, it's about the miles.

Mentally I'm both nervous and excited. I'm nervous because that is a lot of miles ahead of me and I know I need to train even on days when it is hot, raining, or sore from a previous run. I know its going to take a lot of motivation to keep going so I'm glad that my friend David is doing the marathon as well and following the same training program. We can keep tabs on each other (aka harass the other one into making sure they are getting their miles in) and commiserate. I'm excited because this will be a challenge unlike any other that I've attempted.

Now off to go run!