10 days until the Marathon! I registered way back in January, when I set myself the goal of running a Marathon in 2014 and boy did this year fly by! Every week has been so full of training runs and workouts that I feel like I blinked and now it’s almost Race Day! When I registered 9 months ago, I couldn’t even imagine all that goes in to training for a Marathon. It takes a lot of time, dedication, persistence, and both physical and mental toughness.
How much time goes into the training? I would make a rough estimate that during the week I run for a total of about 5-9 hours a week (2-3 of those hours alone are spent on Saturdays for long runs). This is the toughest part, because long runs really cut out a huge chunk of your weekend. I felt like every weekend I had to plan my life around my run! For yoga and other cross training, like lifting and swimming, I spent about 1-3 hours a week. Physical therapy was also an important aspect, which takes about 5-8 hours a week. This time is spent icing, heating, stretching, and soaking various parts of the body. Taking care of any pain is super important, and while I am certainly better at this part of training since my Half Marathon, I can definitely still improve in this area.
While this is about 20 hours a week spent on training, it is all quite manageable by simply developing a routine that works around my schedule. This brings us to the dedication. Sometimes if you really want to accomplish something, you have to make choices that aren’t always the easiest options. For example, in order to do my runs during the weekdays and in order to fit in yoga, I wake up around 5:30am to get in my workout before work. Generally, if I didn’t workout, I could sleep in until 7:30am but I made the choice to go to bed earlier so that I could wake up earlier. I didn’t sacrifice sleep, because that is certainly not good for my health/training. So, maybe I give up evening television in order to go to bed by 9:30 or 10:00, but training keeps me active and healthy. To me, this is worth giving up some TV.
Without true dedication, I can see how it could be hard to find the time and energy to commit to the task of Marathon Training. You have to really want to be a Marathon Finisher in order to put yourself through the trials of persistence. There are so many runs where I had trouble just getting out the door. There are so many runs that I felt slow, I felt sore, I felt like I was dragging along like a snail. There are so many runs that afterwards I felt exhausted, I felt sick to my stomach, I felt like I could never want to run again. But, I kept going. I kept running and pushing and trying harder. More often than the bad runs, I’ve had good runs! The persistence got me to these good runs and these good runs are what makes it all worth it. It’s the persistence that will get me to the finish line on Race Day, and crossing that finish line will make all the hardships, all the bad runs, and all the body aches worth it.
Running has taught me more than how to go further and how to go faster. It has showed me that I am strong. I am strong physically and I am strong mentally. 12 months ago, I would never be able to imagine running even 15 miles. I definitely couldn’t see myself running 18. 20 miles seemed impossible and 26.2 seemed just downright ridiculous. But now, 15 miles is almost easy. 18 miles is doable. 20 is actually possible. And, I guess we will see about the 26.2 in 10 days. I am so proud of myself (and of Billy who also accomplished all of this with me). It is insane to me what the human body is capable of when you put your mind to it.
I am nervous about 26.2 but I just have to keep telling myself that like the other long runs, I will be able to get through it. I look forward to crossing this goal off of my 2014 to-do list, and I am so excited to have my family there to cheer me on. My family hasn’t been to one of my longer races before, and I know that with them cheering me on, I’ll be unstoppable! Race Day here I come!! 10.18.2014.
How much time goes into the training? I would make a rough estimate that during the week I run for a total of about 5-9 hours a week (2-3 of those hours alone are spent on Saturdays for long runs). This is the toughest part, because long runs really cut out a huge chunk of your weekend. I felt like every weekend I had to plan my life around my run! For yoga and other cross training, like lifting and swimming, I spent about 1-3 hours a week. Physical therapy was also an important aspect, which takes about 5-8 hours a week. This time is spent icing, heating, stretching, and soaking various parts of the body. Taking care of any pain is super important, and while I am certainly better at this part of training since my Half Marathon, I can definitely still improve in this area.
While this is about 20 hours a week spent on training, it is all quite manageable by simply developing a routine that works around my schedule. This brings us to the dedication. Sometimes if you really want to accomplish something, you have to make choices that aren’t always the easiest options. For example, in order to do my runs during the weekdays and in order to fit in yoga, I wake up around 5:30am to get in my workout before work. Generally, if I didn’t workout, I could sleep in until 7:30am but I made the choice to go to bed earlier so that I could wake up earlier. I didn’t sacrifice sleep, because that is certainly not good for my health/training. So, maybe I give up evening television in order to go to bed by 9:30 or 10:00, but training keeps me active and healthy. To me, this is worth giving up some TV.
Without true dedication, I can see how it could be hard to find the time and energy to commit to the task of Marathon Training. You have to really want to be a Marathon Finisher in order to put yourself through the trials of persistence. There are so many runs where I had trouble just getting out the door. There are so many runs that I felt slow, I felt sore, I felt like I was dragging along like a snail. There are so many runs that afterwards I felt exhausted, I felt sick to my stomach, I felt like I could never want to run again. But, I kept going. I kept running and pushing and trying harder. More often than the bad runs, I’ve had good runs! The persistence got me to these good runs and these good runs are what makes it all worth it. It’s the persistence that will get me to the finish line on Race Day, and crossing that finish line will make all the hardships, all the bad runs, and all the body aches worth it.
Running has taught me more than how to go further and how to go faster. It has showed me that I am strong. I am strong physically and I am strong mentally. 12 months ago, I would never be able to imagine running even 15 miles. I definitely couldn’t see myself running 18. 20 miles seemed impossible and 26.2 seemed just downright ridiculous. But now, 15 miles is almost easy. 18 miles is doable. 20 is actually possible. And, I guess we will see about the 26.2 in 10 days. I am so proud of myself (and of Billy who also accomplished all of this with me). It is insane to me what the human body is capable of when you put your mind to it.
I am nervous about 26.2 but I just have to keep telling myself that like the other long runs, I will be able to get through it. I look forward to crossing this goal off of my 2014 to-do list, and I am so excited to have my family there to cheer me on. My family hasn’t been to one of my longer races before, and I know that with them cheering me on, I’ll be unstoppable! Race Day here I come!! 10.18.2014.