Day 3: 5km with Magic Mile.
How long is a mile, really? Let me tell you, it depends on how fast you have to run it.
Jeff Galloway recommends doing this test regularly in your training program to determine what your pace for the long runs should be, and to predict your race time (5K, 10K, half-marathon and marathon). If I put in my time of today, I get for the 5K a prediction that is about 20 seconds faster than my current pb, and 1 minute faster for the 10K. But those were not races, they both were comfortable training runs so I'm pretty sure I could achieve the times predicted by Galloway without problems, and maybe on better days do even better.
Today I was running alone and I had eaten a good breakfast, but still I felt a bit heavy. I guess if I had run the 5K or 10K at my best, today I would have done it in the predicted time, so I am going to stick to the suggested training pace for the long runs. Thanks Mr. Galloway!
Good news coming from Mr.Achilles too: I didn't have any problem today, just like on Thursday (I had forgotten to mention it).
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Running on empty
Day two of my training program, 8km: warm up, 5km tempo, cool down.
Nice day, thin clouds veiling the sun, a bit windy, quite fresh. I had both kids in the stroller so I spent the warm up chatting with my daughter, as always when she's awake. She doesn't really care if I'm just warming up or if I'm sprinting without a breath to spare...
When warm up was over and I had to speed up, problems started. I was finding it hard to keep a pace that is easily in my comfort zone, and I didn't know why. Luckily my daughter went quiet, so at least I didn't have to talk except for the occasional "oh look, a horse!".
It was only by the 3rd km that it finally dawned on me: I was running on empty. A coffee and some yogurt isn't exactly what I would call "the breakfast of champions". It took a while for my body to understand it was time to burn some fat and by the time I finally got that much needed energy, my workout was over.
Please remind me to have a decent breakfast on workout days.
Nice day, thin clouds veiling the sun, a bit windy, quite fresh. I had both kids in the stroller so I spent the warm up chatting with my daughter, as always when she's awake. She doesn't really care if I'm just warming up or if I'm sprinting without a breath to spare...
When warm up was over and I had to speed up, problems started. I was finding it hard to keep a pace that is easily in my comfort zone, and I didn't know why. Luckily my daughter went quiet, so at least I didn't have to talk except for the occasional "oh look, a horse!".
It was only by the 3rd km that it finally dawned on me: I was running on empty. A coffee and some yogurt isn't exactly what I would call "the breakfast of champions". It took a while for my body to understand it was time to burn some fat and by the time I finally got that much needed energy, my workout was over.
Please remind me to have a decent breakfast on workout days.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The training program and Day One
Yesterday I was pretty busy trying to sketch a training program. If you've ever googled marathon training program, you know there's enough to lose your mind even if you just want to pick one program and stick to it.
Me? I was of course not happy with any of the ready schedules served on the free-for-all internet buffet... too many or too few weekly runs, too many or too few kilometers, suggested pace too fast or too slow, long runs on the wrong days (come on, who's gonna run 26km on Christmas Day???)... so with A LOT of cut and paste I finally came up with a training schedule I'm satisfied with.
I basically took Jeff Galloway's beginner scheme for the long runs on Sunday, and substituted its weekday 30min runs with distances (and paces) from a couple of programs created with Runner's World Smart Coach. Tuesday is my easy run day, always between 5km and 7km, Thursday is for speed work and Sunday for the long run. This allows me to run with the kids during the week without them getting too bored in the stroller, have a very long run only once every 2-3 weeks and include some challenging speed work while still following the general guidelines of a super tried and proved training schedule.
At this point I'm still not sure whether I will or not adopt Galloway's strategy for the long runs, which includes walk breaks.
SO... today was Day One. 5km, easy, no kids.
Did I say "easy"? It was not. It was not easy to stick to a pace one minute slower than what I had been running at until now. It was not easy to run without leaning on the stroller, as I didn't know what to do with my arms. And it was not easy to run with a quite annoying (although not strong) pain in my right Achilles tendon, let's see how this goes.
And did I mention that it was also raining a bit?
But it felt good, boy it felt good. I am no longer just a mom who runs with a stroller, I am a mom who's training for a friggin' marathon.
Me? I was of course not happy with any of the ready schedules served on the free-for-all internet buffet... too many or too few weekly runs, too many or too few kilometers, suggested pace too fast or too slow, long runs on the wrong days (come on, who's gonna run 26km on Christmas Day???)... so with A LOT of cut and paste I finally came up with a training schedule I'm satisfied with.
I basically took Jeff Galloway's beginner scheme for the long runs on Sunday, and substituted its weekday 30min runs with distances (and paces) from a couple of programs created with Runner's World Smart Coach. Tuesday is my easy run day, always between 5km and 7km, Thursday is for speed work and Sunday for the long run. This allows me to run with the kids during the week without them getting too bored in the stroller, have a very long run only once every 2-3 weeks and include some challenging speed work while still following the general guidelines of a super tried and proved training schedule.
At this point I'm still not sure whether I will or not adopt Galloway's strategy for the long runs, which includes walk breaks.
SO... today was Day One. 5km, easy, no kids.
Did I say "easy"? It was not. It was not easy to stick to a pace one minute slower than what I had been running at until now. It was not easy to run without leaning on the stroller, as I didn't know what to do with my arms. And it was not easy to run with a quite annoying (although not strong) pain in my right Achilles tendon, let's see how this goes.
And did I mention that it was also raining a bit?
But it felt good, boy it felt good. I am no longer just a mom who runs with a stroller, I am a mom who's training for a friggin' marathon.
Monday, October 24, 2011
And so it begins
Yesterday, October 22nd, was my last run as a non-marathon-trainee: 10km on a perfect cold but sunny day, with my son sleeping in the jogging stroller. Today, everything changed.
I've been running regularly since August with no real target in mind and for weeks I have lazily been looking at half-marathons and marathons in my area, but it was basically like window shopping. Worse, it was like internet window shopping, if you know what I mean.
Then this afternoon my husband came home from his run with a brilliant idea: "YOU can do the Stockholm marathon!". I had mentioned that marathon as a possible one for him to do (he's done three already, plus 5 half marathons), because I love Stockholm and I want to go back there, but I had never considered running it myself!
I had no arguments against this idea, so I sheepishly signed up for my first marathon: Stockholm, June 2nd 2012. This place is where I will keep track of the 223 days separating me from this enormous challenge, with all the ups and downs sure to come.
I've been running regularly since August with no real target in mind and for weeks I have lazily been looking at half-marathons and marathons in my area, but it was basically like window shopping. Worse, it was like internet window shopping, if you know what I mean.
Then this afternoon my husband came home from his run with a brilliant idea: "YOU can do the Stockholm marathon!". I had mentioned that marathon as a possible one for him to do (he's done three already, plus 5 half marathons), because I love Stockholm and I want to go back there, but I had never considered running it myself!
I had no arguments against this idea, so I sheepishly signed up for my first marathon: Stockholm, June 2nd 2012. This place is where I will keep track of the 223 days separating me from this enormous challenge, with all the ups and downs sure to come.
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