Marathon Training Week 5
How am I already on week five of training? Crazy!
Last week (week four) I had some issues with my plan thanks to THAT awful time of the month. I only did one speed workout. Argh. Because I was feeling so awful during Tuesday’s mile repeats I took Thursday easy & per Brennan’s advice I listened to my body.
Sometimes it is very hard to decipher listening to your body vs. being a big wuss. I truly don’t think you know what listening to your body means until you put it through some sort of extreme. I had no idea what my body was telling me until I trained for a marathon. I wish I could tell you certain signs to mentally note but it really varies per person.
On that note, week five is here and I 100% wussed out on Tuesday. I attempted to knock out my usual 5 x 1 mile repeats and it was unbelievably hard. I only did four MR. I tried to tell myself I was just listening to my body but it was a big fat lie.
I think this little lesson was an imperative reminder that training is not supposed to be easy. I am not supposed to feel like Tark with 15 minutes left in the 1990 National Championship game vs Duke. Hands behind my head, relaxing on the bench, no towel in mouth. This is supposed to be really hard. Why else do it?
With that in mind, I finally got through a track workout as planned. Yesterday morning’s workout below.
1.5 mile warm up – Begin at 9min pace, end at 8min pace
7 x 800m – Set treadmill at 6:27 pace and hopped off for a 1m30s recovery
1 mile cool down – 8/9min pace
I know the treadmill is not ideal to complete a “track” workout, however, because I never run this fast it was helpful to feel how fast my legs need to move. It was also a huge mental boost to tell myself I can do it. My next obstacle is figuring out how to translate this to the track without the help of a treadmill.
I took today off and I have 14 tomorrow and seven on Sunday. The goal this weekend is to take Sunday’s seven slow and recover so I can stay fresh and give more love to my very important speed workouts. I could use a stress free run, Garmin-less.
Boots Bikes + Barbells 