One Month Down, Three To Go - Wineglass Marathon Training Week 4
It’s hard for me to believe that I’m already 1 month done with marathon training. I planned this training cycle with 16 weeks and that means I’m officially through 25%. I’m feeling both proud of my progress so far and nervous that I’m not going to be able to build enough to reach the final peak that I want. I remember feeling this way last marathon training cycle as well and I continue to remind myself that 1 - I am ahead of where I was last year and 2 - I am playing the long game and I’m not going to accomplish everything in this training cycle. With that said, I am focused on doing what I can set myself up for the best marathon possible this October!
Monday - July 8th - 3 mile run
Keeping it real here - I did not have the best start to the week. I was late to get going on Monday and hesitated to actually get out the door for this run. I went back and forth on if I should run this morning and started making compromises in my brain of how I could run other days instead. Ultimately, I realized that If I wanted to reach my goal mileage for the week, I was going to have to have to start today.
Originally I planned to run 5 miles but by the time I got out the door I was short on time before work so I settled for 3 miles and make plans to work in some other extra miles throughout the week. Some days, it’s a win to just get in any run!
Tuesday - July 9th - 1.5 mile run + Gym Session (20 minutes bike + 16 minutes upper body strength)
To get in some of mileage I missed on Monday, I decided to run to Planet Fitness and then did the usual gym routine of biking followed by strength training. I did some light weights for upper body and thankfully my left neck and shoulder are still feeling good. I can definitely tell that my upper body frame starts to sink in when I get tired on the run so I’m eager to get back to more back and arm strength training.
Wednesday - July 3rd - Hill Workout - (30 minutes of hills) - 5 miles total
This was my first hill workout and although it was tough, I enjoyed it! A lot of my regular runs involve hills but I also want to make sure I am intentionally working in hill workouts to my routine.
I like to keep my hill workouts simple and usually focus on the structure of hard effort uphill and recovery downhill. For today I did a 1 mile warm up, 20 minutes of slow and steady hill reps and 10 minutes of short, steep hill reps, and finished with a 1 mile cool down. Each hill set followed the continuous push and recover pattern. I worked hard to get through this session and enjoyed pushing myself without the pressure of focusing on a specific pace.
Thursday- July 4th - Gym Session (25 minutes bike + 20 minutes lower body strength)
Today was a standard gym session - started on the bike and then focused on lower body strength. For these sessions I do a combination of machines, free weights and floor exercises - whatever is available/I feel like doing. Favorites include leg presses, hamstring curls, calf raises, lunges with a knee lift, squats, and bridges.
Friday - 4 mile run
I have really been enjoying Friday runs as a way to get some easy shakeout miles in before a long run the next day. I planned to do around 3 miles and then felt good so decided to go for 4! An excellent way to start Friday.
Saturday - Long Run - 12 mile run
This was my longest run in a longgg time (I guess that’s true for all these long runs so far) and with that always comes a little bit wondering of how the long run is actually going to go. When I woke up on Saturday morning, it was pouring and I continued to snooze until it cleared up. Even though I didn’t start running until around 9:30am, I lucked out with a cloudy and overall “cooler” feeling day (still in the mid-80s for temperature and humidity %).
I genuinely had a ton of fun running through Old San Juan to El Morro, following familiar streets and listening to a killer playlist of all my favorites. I don’t often to full music for long runs (I typically start with at least one podcast to get through the first miles) and I gotta say, I was definitely a fan. I usually end up enjoying long run today the most and today was no exception. It left me looking forward to next weekend!
Sunday - Rest day
As usual, I took the last day of the week as a rest day but was up and at it super early (alarm went off at 3:50am!) to watch Graham compete in his first official triathlon! Although it was not the most organized race, it was incredible to cheer for Graham and I was so proud of him! And as with any race, it was very inspiring to watch all of the athletes.
Weekly Totals - 25.5 miles, 45 minutes biking, 36 minutes strength
Again, I’m still in disbelief that it has already been a month of training. And I know that although I am eager to build my mileage and training volume, I’m also going to need to work in some down weeks to ensure I stay healthy and can maintain the training that I do have all the way to marathon Sunday in October!
Items I want to focus on next week:
Sleep routine - I have so much room for improvement here. I want to get into a set schedule of what time I start getting ready for bed and curate a wind down ritual that allows me to relax.
Biking & strength training volume - I would like to extend my gym time a little bit to continue getting in extra cardio time and improve my strength training base.
Core - In previous weeks I implemented at least 1 core move after every run as an easy way to make sure I got it in consistently and I’d like to stick to this again as I know this works better for me than fitting in an entire, separate core workout.