You can easily get caught up on focusing on that daunting number of 26.2 miles. It seems so far. But the real challenge is not the distance you are running; it is for how long of a period of time. Your body goes through a lot of changes when you are doing a physical activity for several hours.
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The 2015 Boston Marathon is rapidly approaching. I haven’t moved into full training mode yet – still a little early for that. I have started to increase my volume gradually, though. Coach Kyle also has me running by time instead of distance.
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“One thing I’ve learned about coaches, from having a coach myself, is that he inspires me to get the job done. Simply having someone looking at my running log (and give me the workouts in the first place) is such a huge motivation to do your best for them. That is a great inspiration for those tough miles or intervals, doing my best for my coach. A cookie cutter online plan or even a book does not care if you skipped a run or missed your paces, and they’re not going to help you figure out how to proceed either.” — Kyle Kranz
I am trying a different approach to marathon training. With my previous two marathons, I had used a marathon plan that focused on a number of miles and a recommended pace for each workout. The majority of the runs, excluding the weekly long run, were between six and nine miles and paces from seven to nine minutes per mile, usually finishing in an hour or less.
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Nine weeks into my sixteen week marathon training program, and I tweak my calf muscle. I got a sharp pain on the inside of my left leg’s calf muscle. I have had calf strains in the past. In 2012, a calf muscle tear caused me to miss the Apple Blossom 10k that I had been training for. So, as soon as I felt the strain at mile twelve of my fourteen miler, I stopped an walked the rest of the way home. I knew it was not a bad strain and decided to take a few days off from my training. (more…)
Brutal week. Speed work on Tuesday that had me going fast (7:30 mile pace) for .62 miles followed by 30 seconds of slow. This repeated 10 times with 2 miles slow to warm up and a mile slow at the end to cool down. 9.75 rough miles. (more…)
