What was the secret? They wanted to know, in a thousand different ways they wanted to know THE SECRET. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottom of his running shoes. - John L. Parker

Monday, January 14, 2013

Cleveland Marathon Training - Week 1

Week 1 of marathon training is complete!  My foot's been feeling better this week so I started running more. I even took advantage of the nice weather over the weekend to do some barefooting.  I also got in some hard running for the first time in a while.  Ideally, I'd like to build up my tempo run to the point where I can do 10 miles at around 6 minute pace.  I feel that if I can do this I have a good shot at 3:30, which is about 8 minute pace.

This week's runs:

Monday: 3.14 miles (8:10 pace)

Tuesday: Rest Day

Wednesday: 4.8 miles (8:46 pace)

Thursday: 5.67 miles (8:07 pace)

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: 0.54 miles barefoot (8:58 pace) and 6.81 miles (7:38 pace)

Sunday: Tempo Run - For this I did a 1.09 mile loop on the streets three times.  My goal is to run 6:30 per loop (5:58 pace).  My splits were 6:19, 6:37 and 6:41.  So I was fast on the first one and paid for it on the next two but overall I was pretty happy with it, since it's the first time I've run hard since the Reindeer Run.  Total distance with warmup and cooldown was 5.31 miles.

Total mileage: 26.3 miles

And if you're looking for some inspiration I'll leave you with my favorite motivational tool: the training montage!  The king of training montages is of course Rocky.  We'll start with the original (maybe I should start drinking raw eggs for breakfast hmm...).



Good luck to everyone with your training!
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6 comments:

  1. Nice training week. I love that you are taking rest days and not over training. Over training is very common in runners when training for a marathon.

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  2. Good first week of marathon training. Glad to hear the foot is starting to feel better. Sometimes the hardest part of a marathon cycle is staying healthy.

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  3. I'm training for Cleveland too, my first full. Check out my blog: www.clevelandorbust26point2.blogspot.com

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  4. I was checking your training and see that you're going for a 3:30 finish? Not that I'm an expert, and not that anyone has asked, but seems to me that if the paces you post for your runs are paces you consider 'easy', and looking at the workouts you do, you could definitely finish better than 3:30. I'm going for between 3:30 and 3:30 and run much slower. How'd you pick 3:30?

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    1. Hi Amanda. Thanks for reading. I went with 3:30 as my goal mainly because I have no experience with long distance racing. That's why I went for a fairly conservative pace. That goal might change as I get closer to race and have some long runs and long tempos to go off of.

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    2. Brian,

      I guess long distance is a whole other ball game and a conservative goal is always better than the opposite. Hope the training goes well (and healthy!) in which case, I'm sure it'll take you to a way faster finish than you're thinking. But one step at a time... :-)

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