Training Plan

I mentioned in my introduction that qualifying for the 2009 Boston Marathon was my training goal. To that end, I developed a training plan. If I can figure out how to post this document, I will. The qualifying marathon will be the Brookings Marathon on May 10, 2008. South Dakota is my home state, so I couldn't think of a better place to have my family cheering me on.

I've been running pretty consistently for the past year. Usually I run for a while, then get distracted by mountain biking, hiking, or just plain laziness. So one year going strong is good for me. I joined a running club this past winter, but only made it to a couple of the group runs. I realized that I would rather run with Scout than with a bunch of other people, so that was the end of that.

Sargent (my husband) got me a Garmin Forerunner 305 for Christmas. This thing is great! It is a GPS unit on a wristband that tracks distance, pace, elevation, heart rate, training zones, and provides a map of my route. It also does much more that I have yet to discover. I'll be posting all of my running stats from this (hopefully, if I can figure it out).

I have run a few marathons before, with varied results. The first marathon I ran was Grandma's in 2001. My time was 4:17. The longest run I did to train for this marathon was 6 miles. Needless to say, completing the marathon was painful. I'm lucky I made it to the finish on my feet. Yes, running this without any training was stupid, and I said I would never do a marathon again. But this just proved to me that I could do it, and made me think "what could I do if I actually trained?"

The second marathon was the Dallas White Rock Marathon the following December. See how crazy I can be? The words "I will never do another marathon again" were barely out of my mouth when I signed up for Dallas. I vowed this one would be different. I got on Runner's World and downloaded a training plan. I followed this plan and was feeling pretty good until Thanksgiving. My knee started bothering me. IT band the doctors said. I took a a couple of weeks off and flew into Dallas. I told my friend Heather that it was likely I would drop out if my knee hurt. After all, why risk serious injury just to finish the marathon. The the gun went off and I was running. By mile 6 my knee was beginning to hurt. I told myself I would drop out at 13 where I knew there was a first aid station. Even though I was in quite a bit of pain by mile 13, I ran right through the aid station with full intentions of pulling out at mile 18, where the map showed another Red Cross sign. By mile 18 I was walking quite a bit...limping, rather. But with only 8 miles to go, how could I quit? I decided to "tough it out" until the end. I finished in 4:34 and could not run again for almost 1 year. Yep, pretty stupid.

The third attempt was at the Colorado Marathon in 2003. With a course through the Poudre Canyon, this marathon is one of the most scenic in the country. It is all downhill. What more could I want? Big mistake. For someone with knee or IT band injuries, a downhill race can be a killer. Add that to the twisty, turny, slanted road in the canyon...OUCH! However, I did learn from past mistakes (it certainly took me long enough!). I saw my husband at mile 16, promptly got in the car and went home. From that point on, the longest race I have done has been 13.1 miles.

I would like to think I have been much smarter in my recent training. I generally run no more than 4x per week, do lots of stretching (very important as you get old like me), and purchased a roller. This roller helps to massage out the tender and difficult to stretch IT band area. So far so good!