Yesterday marked the first official day of my marathon training and I did it with a bang! Monday was suppose to be my cross training day, but with snow and ice on the ground, I didn’t know where to begin. Without a gym membership, there are not many options. I think it is time to invest in a bike trainer. I will be ready for the next cross training day. Last night I hurried home from work eager to start my training. It was a beautiful 40 degrees outside and slowly cooling down. Most of the snow and ice was gone from the sidewalks. My training program called for a 30 minute tempo run. Which meant that I had to run at a comfortable hard pace for the majority of the run. This will help develop some speed. Two years ago I knew that I could go out and run at a great pace. It was becoming a natural thing for me. Over the last year, I have slowed down and ran less.
Since getting Flynn and with snow and ice on the ground, I have been consistently running a 10 minute miles. This is something were I have had to become a little more humble. I like logging 9:00 minute miles on a regular basis and for my tempo runs breaking into the 8’s. At one point I was consistently in the 9’s for my long runs as well. That was great for when I ran my first and second marathons, but they were also at or close to sea level. San Francisco was as well, but I definitely didn’t put in the time for training for that one like I did the other two. I really want to focus on my training for this marathon and give it my best. I would love to go under 4 hours at one marathon. I would love it to be this next one, but i will be running at a higher elevation. I am not too sure if this will be the one. I am going to give my training my all though and maybe just maybe it will happen.
Getting back to the start of my training, I laced up, grabbed the dog and took off on my run. We were going at a pretty decent pace. The closer I was getting to the 15 minute mark where I was going to turn around, I could feel myself getting tired. I decided that I would keep pushing and not give up or go slower. I kept going as Flynn and I were rushing down the sidewalk getting closer and closer to home. I was running out of breath and didn’t want to stop because at the same time I was feeling great. Great in a weird and abnormal way though since I was exhausted. When I saw that my 30 minutes was up, we stopped. I walked around near my house for a moment to cool down. I looked down at my phone to see what my pace had been. It was an 8:35! What!! I was so excited to know that I still had it in me somewhere. I am excited to see where the rest of my training takes me.
Bring it on Coflax!