2nd Marathon Training Cycle…

A few weeks ago, I signed up for my second marathon. Nick and I will be running the Suffolk County Marathon on Sunday, October 23rd. I’m excited and nervous but not as much as the first time. Today I start week 7 of my seventeen week training cycle. This time around I’m following a plan by Hal Higdon. Hal has a number of different plans and I decided to go with the Intermediate 1 plan. I don’t consider myself a novice runner, although I may be considered novice as far as marathon training goes. But after looking at the training plan, I thought I could do the Intermediate 1 plan no problem.

I learned a lot during my first training cycle so I’m doing some things different this time around:

1. As mentioned above, I’m following a plan from a marathon runner, trainer, and writer. While what I did the first time was good enough to give me a 4:13:16 finish, I wanted to follow a tried and true plan to see how different it would be.

2. I will be running 5 days a week rather than 3-4 days. Now that I have access to a treadmill in my home, I can get more running in during the week.

3. I bought a second pair of sneakers- one that I’ll use for my indoor training on the treadmill and one that I’ll use for my outdoor training. That way, I don’t kill one pair of sneakers and fear they won’t hold up until the big day.

4. I’m trying for 80/20. My goal for this race is 3:59:59, which is 9:09 mile pace. That’s 31 seconds faster than my first marathon. To do that I’m attempting to run 80% of my runs at 30-90 seconds SLOWER than my marathon pace and only one run at race pace. This is a challenge for me. I like to do interval runs and sometimes it’s difficult to run slow. Trust me on that because I’m definitely struggling with this method. My body naturally falls into a 8:45-9 min pace when I run outside. Lately, because of the heat and humidity I’ve been going slower but it’s been harder than it usually feels.

5. I bought a Garmin watch! I hadn’t planned to switch from my Apple Watch to Garmin, but my Apple Watch broke a couple of days into June. I did some research, asked other runners for their opinions and it became super clear- get a Garmin! So I did. And I haven’t looked back. I love how the Garmin shows you 5 different heart rate zones. My goal is to stay in zones 2 and 3 for most of my runs. Zone 4 is for outdoor, long runs and of course, intervals. Zone 5 is where I hang during shorter races. I don’t watch my heart rate while I’m running but it’s good data to look at after the run is over.

A few other differences- I won’t be documenting every week of my training. More than likely I’ll be sharing every few weeks. I’m also trying some new things as far as my nutrition is concerned and will share more of that as I dig further into it.

Things I’m doing the same as last cycle- Using cliffs block chews as my energy of choice during long runs. I’m also running in my favorite brand of running sneakers- ASICS. And lastly, most of my long runs I’ll have my PIC by my side, which always makes the long runs slightly less excruciating.

Lastly, this blog will go back to a little bit of everything since running and training, while a big part of my life, is not the only thing I’m passionate about. Stay tuned for more of the good stuff including what I’m listening to, what I’m reading, what I’m doing this summer and more.