The PLAN

Ok, sooooo….. you decide to run a marathon right? Next step? You gotta come up with a PLAN. This plan will be your teacher/torturer from day 1 until you finish that darn race. It’s kinda important.

Last year, when I ran the Marine Corps Marathon I went with tried and true, and used Hal Higdon’s Novice 2 plan. And ya’ll, it worked. However, when I finally decided to throw myself into the fray this fall I wanted something a little different. Last year my one and only focus was to finish the marathon. DONE. But, I had some trouble early on, which led to a much slower time than I had wanted. And I didn’t do any of the recommended workouts (not that there were many in that plan) – I just ran the distance and called it a day. Now that I’ve had that experience, I want to take it up a notch. I want to really focus on training. And hopefully get my finishing time down to 4 hours. It’s a far cry from Boston qual times for my age bracket [3:10 if you’re curious *UPDATE – that’s actually 3:40 ha! I was looking at the male times… Pssshhhttt I could TOTALLY qual for Boston one day (bwahahaha)], but would be a huge improvement.

So, along came the Hansons Marathon Method. It’s intense, it’s specific, it’s different. For instance, the longest run is 16 miles. However you do, like, three of those suckers. Also you run 6 days a week, have several different types of workouts and focus on cumulative fatigue. The idea being that you train for the last half of the marathon, not the first.

For more details, check out this article. I think this training method will better fit my running personality. I pretty much have to be all or nothing when it comes to these things. If I am not all in I will absolutely slack off. And you really can’t fake a marathon. At least I can’t!

Like I said earlier this week, training starts Thursday. I unearthed my running watch the other day and plugged it in – it still seems to work. Next up, I need to buy a new pair of shoes and revive my Daily Mile account…….

As for the vegan portion of my plan… just a few days left to eat up all the chicken and cheese in the house. Come Thurs it’s GAME ON!

Hoo doggy

So, here I am. Out of shape and feeling the itch. The itch to RUN!! But not just to run a few miles outside when I feel like it (sadly, as that would be so much cheaper than the alternative). Noooooo…. apparently I’ve become one of those people who needs a goal – a big goal.

And suddenly I find myself signed up for the Anthem Richmond Marathon! I seriously have no idea how it happened, but here I sit…. with a bib ordered for home delivery (extra charge) and an official announcement already made on Facebook (so now you KNOW it’s real).

Which means, this blog is about to come back to life. Rather Frankensteinish. Yeah, I just made that word up. But you know what I mean right?

Therefore – onto the goals. The big goals. The nearly unacheieveable goals. Training starts next Thursday, one full week from today. For the next 18 weeks I will:

• TRAIN to run the marathon (I’ll elaborate on my training plan in another post)
• EAT a fully vegan diet (like I’ve been meaning to do since……forever)
• BLOG every training day, at a minimum (since I failed miserably during last year’s training cycle)

I mean, why not?? Let’s DO this!