I’ve given myself a nice week of doing whatever workouts I’d like and eating whatever I’d like and now it’s time to settle into a training schedule. I had the realization yesterday that it has been 5 1/2 since the OC Marathon which is essentially the last time I followed a training plan. After the race I was burnt out after training hard for 7 months in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon. After not qualifying, I was ready for a break, even though I knew it meant a loss in my fitness.
It’s time to get that fitness back. My attitude has changed a bit in terms of training. I’ve been running without a Garmin and hitting the trails (as part of training for the Ragnar Trail Relay I’m running in November). Overall I have a bit of a more relaxed attitude toward my training. I hope to maintain this attitude through this next half marathon training cycle and even more importantly, through my training cycle for the Mountains to Beach Marathon, where I do plan to attempt to qualify for Boston again.
After reflecting a lot on my DNF at Eugene and my failure to perform at the OC Marathon, I’ve realized that my own mind was my worst enemy. I put so much pressure on myself to succeed at that race that I basically ruined my chances. In this training cycle I plan to focus more on mental toughness, visualization and most importantly, I will try to remember that it’s just a race.
I’m still toying with the idea of hiring a coach for the M2B training but for now, I’m going to self-coach and see how much progress I can make in time for the San Diego Holiday Half Marathon on December 29. If you can believe it, there are only 10 weeks until that race (i.e. less than 10 weeks til Christmas!). I know that this won’t be a PR performance for me, but I do want it to be a solid effort. I don’t want to finish the race disappointed in my training as I did with AFC and Coronado 15k.
Another change I’m making in this training cycle is that I am not going to neglect strength training. I feel best during races (and perform best!) when I’ve been supplementing with strength training and I plan to incorporate that into my training. For now, I’m going to follow the 3 day a week gym strength training plan that Danielle created for Asia and me while also running 4 days a week. I’m also still addicted to Club Pilates so I’ll try to squeeze at least one of those in a week. After a couple weeks of building my base I plan to get back to speed work – Mike and I have discussed Tuesday night track dates.
A plan is still in the works but one thing is for sure – it’s time to get out there and train!
How do you mentally train? I just ran a marathon this past Sunday and totally bonked. No idea why. I just felt done after 13 miles. My training was perfect! Speed, hills, tempo, weights, diet! I thought for sure that I would qualify for boston this time. This isn’t my first time choking! Ha. I think that I put so much pressure on myself and I need to quite telling everyone my goals. Everyone knows that I have it in me but me. Love to train but hate raceday. I read some good articles on visualization but it doesn’t seem to work on race day. I was ready for this! I had it! Ran my worst time by over15 minutes! 3 marathons ago missed the mark by one minute. 2 marathons ago missed the mark by 6 minutes. This one by 15 minutes! How can my training be perfect but I fall apart on raceday. I will say that I am not over trained or undertrained. Hmmm…Thinking of doing another one in two weeks since I am trained. I don’t think that it would be too much on my body because my timed dropped significantly in the last half. Pretty much I ran an awesome half. Not sore at all and the race was just 48 hours ago. Any thoughts would be great.
I’m still figuring it out! Thank you for sharing your experiences too. Mike (my husband) has been doing a lot of research lately on this. I will try to get a more detailed blog post together and share what we learn!
You probably aren’t ready for another marathon just 2 weeks after another unfortunately. You could probably finish but you won’t achieve your potential which might even mentally mess you up more!
I also think my 2nd attempt at the BQ failure may have had something to do with nutrition as well – that could be another reason for the late bonk?
That’s awesome you’re more relaxed about training now! It’s so much more enjoyable when I’m relaxed versus not.
I never run with a garmin on trails either, unless i really want to know the distance. It’s just so peaceful that way!
I love how active you stay when you’re not actually training for something. It makes getting back into it a lot easier!
On a totally different note, are you going to post some honeymoon photos and stories?! I’d love to hear about it all, but especially Cinque Terre!
Yes I will do a post or two about the honeymoon. I just didn’t want to bombard my blog with only wedding related stuff! Coming soon 🙂