Marathon Training Sucks

Marathon training sucks.  Its funny, as I write those words I realize that I have been here so many times before.  After months of slowly building myself back up into an endurance machine, sacrificing, my time, my energy, my friendships, my photography, things were just not falling into place.  Normally by this time in a marathon cycle I have blazed my way to a fast 10k or had a spectacular 10 miler.  Not this cycle.  So far this cycle I have run zero miles under 6 minute pace and barely even strung together a halfway decent 5 miler.  Last month I pulled my calf pretty badly and had to take a full week off.  These last couple of weeks my tempo runs have been flat and I had not yet knocked out any 16 plus mile long runs.  Needless to say I came close to hitting my wall and throwing in my shorty shorts.  But.. I know myself.  So as I have always done in the past I struck a deal with myself.

On Wednesday I ran a halfway decent track workout. A small spark caught the tinder and  shoes began to smoke.  4x1600 meters around my 10k pace with 400 meters in between on a 80 degree / 80 humidity day was all I needed to kick things into place.  I knocked out the workout and felt like there was still some hope.  I didn't feel great, but for the first time in 8 months I did not feel like total crap either.   I told myself that I had permission to drop out of the Chicago Marathon if I couldn't complete my Saturday workout.    On Saturday morning I woke up at 4am and trotted out a 16 mile run at MP plus 1 minute per mile pace.  Normally I never do a run like this.  Most of my long runs are within 30 seconds of my marathon pace, but I knew that this run was important and I had to try my best to complete the workout.  As I clicked off mile after mile my body and mind began to relax.  My aches and pains started to disappear as did my blanket of self doubt.  I completed my run, hydrated, ate like a beast and took a well deserved nap.

I have done all the math and realized that I still have plenty of time to pull of a great marathon this year.  I have mapped out 6 more 16 mile plus runs (from a fast finish, middle mile tempo run, to my 30k simulator run).  All of these runs are spaced at least 10 days from each other giving ample time between to recover.  The next weeks are going to be tough, but I am finally excited and motivated to buckle down and push on through.

So, the plan is to forget about the speed workouts, focus on the strength workouts, the core work , the long runs and gently move myself into a place where my strength leads the way.  My hope is that my use of hills, and core work will replace what my speed work does for me.  I'm also going to lay off my mileage totals this year and focus on building strength where I have weakness.  I figure if I spend time working on my weaknesses I will get more than grinding out 75 miles per week on weak legs.  So here we go.  Finally!