Okay, call me crazy, but guess what, I'm planning an assault on Charlotte's Thunder Road Marathon, Saturday December 12th. Before you all say stupid idea, sure route to more injuries, let's put this into a bit of a context and maybe you'll see where I'm coming from!
Back up to last post in September. I started running again on August 26th and built back very slowly. Weekly miles since then have been 11,22,36,44,51,56,58,69, on course to hit 70 plus this week. I ran a pathetic rust busting 5k on the 10th October in 17:26 and started hitting a few workouts. The following Saturday I ran a more encouraging 15k in 54:02. Okay so it was nearly three minutes slower than I've previously run but it was fairly under control and stuck to my pre race plan.
When I was able to follow that up the next day with 17 miles it got me thinking about Thunder Road again. Emails followed with Coach Tim and we decided to go for it. More emails back and forth followed and the Training Plan was determined. 7 weeks to go and training starts in earnest tomorrow with 18 miles in the am.
Why am I trying this? Why don't I just carry on building back slowly, maybe aim for the Half, stay healthy through the winter and shoot for a Spring marathon? Good question. But it feels right and after a year of travails on the trails at last I've got something to focus on. The thought of just running through the cold, dark mornings of Winter with nothing specific to aim for just didn't appeal I'm afraid....
This of course isn't going to be your typical marathon build up, far too late for that. The theme is going to be hitting the (twice weekly) workouts as hard as possible, doing the long runs nice and slow and running VERY easily on the other days.
So keep posted over the next few weeks. It could be a roller coaster of a ride....
Good luck!! You have a nice solid base built up so 7 weeks should be plenty of time.
ReplyDeleteAnother way to look at it, you will have a hard time being overtrained for it. :)
ReplyDelete