Marathon Training - Week 22 of 30

Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr

I'm training for my first marathon, which will be the White Rock Marathon in Dallas on December 4, 2011. My training week runs from Monday to Sunday. Tomorrow is Monday, which means the beginning of a new training week!


Week 21 Review:

• Monday: Schedule rest - completed
• Tuesday: 4mi run - completed
• Wednesday: 7mi pace run - completed
• Thursday: 4mi run - completed
• Friday: Scheduled rest - completed
• Saturday: 13mi long run - completed
• Sunday: Cross-training - skipped

Training went pretty well last week. The weather continues to improve. Temps in the mornings are starting to dip into the low 60's, and even into the 50's on Saturday. The only low point this week was some minor ankle pain on Sunday. I decided to rest it and skip the cycling this week.

Saturday's run was meant to be a half marathon. But there was no official half marathon around here, so I just did a 13+ mile run on my own. I am running an official half in a few weeks. Can't wait. One of the challenges of all of this training is that I'm missing out on doing the occasional 5k because I want to stick closely to my training schedule. Maybe I could do one and be okay, but with this being my first marathon, I don't want to call any audibles. I think it's better to play it safe and stick to the schedule. Still, though, I enjoy racing and miss it alot right now. So I can't wait for the half marathon coming up in a few weeks.

The 13 mile run was very comfortable this week. It's amazing how the mind and body gets acclimated to running longer distances. It hasn't been that long since running a half marathon seemed almost impossible.


Week 22
(week 10 of Hal Higdon's Novice 2 program)

This is week 10 of Hal Higdon's Novice 2 program, which is an 18 week training program. So I'm now into the second half of the program.

This week really kicks off the peak 6 weeks of my training. The next six weeks include long runs of 17, 18, 19, and 20 miles. Also, I'll average 33 miles per week over the next six weeks. After that, it's a couple of weeks of tapering and then race day!

My mid-week sorta-long run extends to 8 miles this week, the max mid-week distance on my schedule. Wednesday mornings are getting really early! But I actually only have to do 8mi mid-week runs four times. Not bad. This week my long run will be 17 miles, another distance PR for me.

So, in summary, here's what's on this week's schedule:

• Monday: Schedule rest
• Tuesday: 4mi run
• Wednesday: 8mi pace run
• Thursday: 4mi run
• Friday: Scheduled rest
• Saturday: 17mi long run
• Sunday: Cross-training

Have a great week!