Hey all! I hope you’re having a Happy Sunday. I’ve completed my second week of marathon training and I’m here to tell you about it. Now is your chance to read about week one of training. But first, I want to say, I’m not leaving the blog vacant on purpose. I have blog posts on blog posts, I just haven’t finished them. Today, I’m taking the time to work on the blog during nap time to get some of those posts finished.
But now, you get to talk about my marathon training. I am pleased to say I had a positive week of running. My watch is telling me that my pace is improving. I’m feeling fewer pains because my form is improving and I’m just having a good time. There are mornings when it’s harder for me to wake up but I have to find my motivations (post coming soon).
Monday and Wednesday were just basic three-mile runs. I’m in the “easy” weeks of marathon training right now where the miles are low but for me, they feel like work. The humidity is a killer out there but I’m just trying to power through and make the best of it. I’m hoping these humidity filled miles will lead to faster miles when it backs off a bit.
Truth be told, I’m starting to feel like my old self again. That’s the biggest indicator that I should do more stretching and rolling to keep this marathon training at this standard. My paces are starting to average in the 11’s now which means I’ve made great progress since June.
On Friday, I ran a local 5k race on the Sabine Causeway. It’s two passes on the bridge from Texas to Louisiana. It’s a very challenging race for us because we live in the land of flat. The race went well for me. I ran my intervals and finished my fastest 5k since having the baby.
Saturday morning, I got up to run the Habenero Hundred 20K at 12:15 pm in TEXAS. (You might remember, I ran this race before.) Yes, I’m that crazy and I actually enjoyed it. That is definitely going to be a blog post for tomorrow. The goal of that race was to hit paces but to finish. this was a trail run in the middle of the day on some serious sand. The heat was INSANE. It was a definite struggle and if you follow me on the socials, you already know the story about me quitting the race and then jumping back in.
What made this week challenging for me? The running and teaching my classes at the gym. I subbed a class this week which threw in an extra workout for me. I also didn’t have the greatest week of sleep either. Sleep is the most important factor in functioning and I just didn’t get good quality sleep this week.
Running 3 miles has been a big deal to me because I haven’t been consistent. I have been completely humbled by my return to running because it’s basically starting over. Except when I first started running it wasn’t even this challenging to me. I really am just enjoying the small victories of the bigger picture.
I ended the week with a total of 21.74 miles. This week the marathon plan changes and I’m adding more miles. I’m building up to a longer mid-week run and of course, the long run is increasing.
