Vermont City Marathon Training – Week 1

The first week of  Vermont City Marathon training is in the bank. I love thinking of it in that way – like I’m saving up and collecting those miles and workouts, the physical and mental gains and putting them in an account to grow. Then all I can do is hope that the day I want to close that account the markets are good and the interest rates are profitable. We’ll see!!

Just like I did when I was training for the NYC Marathon in 2013 and when I went for a big half marathon PR in 2014, I’ll be writing a weekly update on my training. When I was tapering in 2013, it was so helpful to read back over my training notes on the blog and realize I did put in the work, all the miles were on my side and I could break the 4:00 barrier. Hopefully these marathon training notes will provide the same confidence before I get to the starting line this May 29th.

Current Goal:

Right now my goal is just to follow my plan and start to make tweaks based on how each workout turns out. I’m committed to three non-negotiable quality workouts a week (a long run, a speed workout and a moderate run), plus whatever I can fit in to my schedule on top of that. Is it a PR plan? I don’t know. I will have to see what my training is reflecting about halfway through before I start working out whether I have a shot at a PR.

Long Run:

8 miles. About 4 miles of this run was along Lake Champlain, which is just such a beautiful place to run. I also threw in the Battery Street hill which is mile 15 of the marathon course. I plan on incorporating this hill into every long run, as well as any hill repeat workouts. I could never ‘practice’ the Queensboro Bridge mile 15 hill for the NYC course, but I plan on knowing every pebble of this one before race day. And it is NASTY.

But this view doesn’t suck. 🙂

Speed Workout:

I eased back into speed with a 3 mile tempo run with a warm up and a cool down. My pace for the tempo was 8:59 which is achingly slower than I’m used to. But I’m not despairing – I’ve learned through years of being a personal trainer that the biggest breakthroughs and improvements always happen with clients who are not in the best shape of their life. I have no doubt I will be seeing less 8’s and more 7’s in speed workouts in the weeks to come.

Regular Run:

This was my favorite run of the week – 6 moderate pace miles, 3 of them on trails. We had a little snow the day before, so I wasn’t sure the trails would be an option. I planned on running to the beginning of the trails to see what they were like, then just turning around and doing an out and back on the roads if I couldn’t do them without spikes. (I just totally forgot I needed the spikes now when I headed out – this winter running is not second nature to me yet!) But it was perfect – just hard enough to make it seem almost like cross training, but not so difficult that I couldn’t get into a rhythm. It was also really freaking cold, but let’s just assume that as a given for every run I document from now until probably mid-April. 

Other Workouts:

I’m doing Baby Strong workouts with Baby T, who is an enormous, wiggling, squirmy  27 lb kettlebell. More on that later this week when I review the program, but rest assured my strength training has been on point!

Notes From the Week:

Watching the Olympic Trials yesterday was so inspiring. Sometimes I forget the distance is so unforgiving. Watching these amazing men and women running for such a small number of Olympic places was heartbreaking. I’m the kind of person who always feels terrible for the losing team in sports, so watching a race where there are 6 overall spots out of a field of over 200 contenders is pretty tough. Especially because there is no real ‘losing’ in the marathon. Just crossing the line is incredible. Sometimes it’s your day, sometimes it’s not. Watching Kara Goucher come in 4th, when there were only three spots for the female athletes, was devastating. I was in tears as she came down that last straight. 

There were also so many moments to remind me of how wonderful running and runners in general can be. Watching Meb is always a lesson in sportsmanship. I loved watching him reveling in the moment of his historic achievement, waving the flag and revving up the crowd. I loved seeing him greet his family with such joy. I loved even more watching him embrace the other runners and pour water on a suffering Jared Ward, the third place-getter, as he lay collapsed after crossing the line.

And the teamwork and support between the two front runners in the women’s race, Amy Cragg and Shalane Flanagan – that was truly inspiring. They’re teammates in training and they coached and supported each other through the last miles of that race. It was beautiful.

Viva la marathon!!

Weekly Mileage:

19 miles

Total Mileage:

19 miles

P.S: Happy Valentine’s Day!

Did you watch the Olympic trials?