Tag Archives: Marathon Training

MSB Marathon T-Minus 10 Weeks: Hell Week, a Bruised Toe, and the Start of No Sugar November

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Only 10 weeks to go until the Mississippi Blues Marathon. This past week was a doozy with Orangetheory Hell Week Monday through Friday (recap here!).  Lots and lots of intervals, which were part of my 5K training plan, plus some good strength training.  I happily took my rest day on Saturday instead of Sunday.

Unfortunately, on Saturday evening I dropped my laptop squarely on my big toe.  Yikes.  Based on the amount of pain, I was questioning whether it was broken, but now I’ve decided it is just badly bruised.  (I’ll spare you the picture.)  As runners, we are often so scared about injuring our knees or dealing with IT band pain and shin splints.  But sometimes just having butterfingers is what will thwart you!

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Orangetheory “Hell Week” Recap!

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As you probably quickly realized when reading this blog, I’ll do a lot for a commemorative t-shirt.  This past week, I earned a free t-shirt and lived to blog about it by completing five days of Hell Week at my local Orangetheory studio.  Here is my recap of the pain and glory.

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Mapping (and Starting!) My Mississippi Blues Marathon Training Plan

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I’ll start by saying that there are millions of philosophies about race training.  Here I’ll share what has worked for me, and what I am planning to do for the Mississippi Blues Marathon, but this is not the only way (or even the best way) to train for a marathon.  I’d love to hear thoughts about what has worked well for other people.

In short, I like to make a rough sketch of a training plan for each marathon so that I don’t get completely off-track, and so that I can anticipate holidays, travel, and work events and prepare accordingly.  Usually I just jot it down on a calendar or in a Googledoc (or now, in a blog post).  The most important runs for marathon prep are the long runs, so I make sure to note what my goal long run is for each week, and then I have the option to do that run any day during the week (but usually Saturdays or Sundays).  I don’t generally write the week’s non-running activities (Orangetheory, pilates (upcoming post!), barre, yoga (also upcoming post!), swimming, etc.), or my run commute, in my training plan, and while I do sometimes put in shorter runs, all of those are subject to change.  Each week is different, and I vary based on my own schedule and how I’m feeling.  Missing a few runs isn’t going to totally kill your training.  Really.  I take at least one, but usually two, rest days each week. Continue reading →

Planning My 2016 Race Schedule

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First:  CONGRATS to everyone is who running/ran the Marine Corps Marathon today!  What a great race!  Hopefully it isn’t too wet out there today.  I saw folks picking up packets earlier this weekend and I got super jealous, but this morning I am cozied up in my home and sort of happy about it.

And now to the topic at hand: When possible, I don’t like to sign up for races too too far in advance, just in case something comes up and my plans need to change.  At the same time, I also don’t cut it so close that the race might fill up, and my plans are thwarted, or so close that I have the option of quitting the whole idea when I get to my 17-mile training run.  But even when I haven’t hit the “Register” button, I still need to map things out well in advance.  In fact, I have a nice little Google spreadsheet that I use to keep track of my races and states, completed and uncompleted.  Here is a snapshot:

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As you may be able to see, I have the columns sortable by state and month, so I can say “hmmm… let’s go to Indiana!  What’s there?” (No, really, that’s a question.  Any answers?)  Or I can say “February is looking open… let me choose a race then.”  I also include the city of the race because some of these states are damn big, and I might be excited to go to one corner but not the other.  And when the city doesn’t have an airport, but I’ll need to fly there, I include a reference to the appropriate airport.  Finally, I include a note if there is a lottery or qualification requirement for the race.  It doesn’t make sense to plan a whole marathon cycle around the New York City Marathon, especially if you forget to register for the lottery.

So now that 2015 is coming to a close, it is time to refer to my spreadsheet and really start thinking about 2016 and what races/states I’ll be tackling.

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