On Sunday November 30th, I completed something I never thought I would even attempt: a full marathon (26.2 miles running race). It all started earlier this year when my running partner (at the time) Angela and I were discussing our next race and decided we wanted to do the Space Coast Half Marathon. This race is very popular because they are doing a 5 year series where each year’s medal is of a different space shuttle (2013 Columbia, 2014 Challenger, 2015 discover, 2016 Endeavour & 2017 Atlantis). If you do three out of the five years you get an additional medal and if you do all five years (half or full or a mix) then you get yet another medal. Since the series is so popular, the half marathon sold out in less than a day and we missed our chance to register for it. We pondered back and forth for weeks and the full marathon started to fill up too. Finally, we agreed that now is probably the best time to do it since neither of us have kids, both of us had a normal work schedule and we had a committed running partner to make the long runs go easier. So we bit the bullet and signed up for our first FULL marathon.
The first thing I did was start researching different training plans to find one that would work for us and figure out when we needed to start training. We picked a very popular plan to follow called the Hal Higdon Novice II Marathon Plan (click to see the plan, it’s free). But you might recall that I was also training for my first Olympic distance triathlon (Battle of the Bridges) so I knew I couldn’t do that many days per week of running PLUS the triathlon training. I decided that the swimming and biking I was doing would make up for missing some runs and I focused only on doing what I considered the two critical runs each week: the mid-distance tempo run (a little faster pace) and the long run (easy pace but high mileage). Only two days per week?? That’s right! My training for the marathon consisted of only two days per week of running. I did do plenty of swimming, biking and even another bootcamp during this time so my muscles were still getting a workout and my cardio was always challenged. Here’s an example of what I tried to do each week (some weeks I did great, others I missed workouts or had to change it up):
I still followed the prescribed distances on the Hal Higdon plan for the tempo and long runs and I made sure not to miss those (I only missed two long runs out of 18 and one was because my foot was hurting and I didn’t want to injure it worse). My favorite part of training this way was that it seemed to help prevent injury. By constantly changing up what I was doing, I minimized the risk of any overuse injuries from any one sport. The downside? You only get 1 or 2 workouts per sport each week so you need to make sure they are high quality. You don’t have any “short fun runs”. For biking and swimming I would try to do a shorter workout focused on speed and a longer workout focused on endurance. But to make a lot of gain in a sport, most plans have you spend a lot more than two days per week on it. Anyways back to the store (more on my crazy training philosophies later).
After I signed up for the race, I changed jobs and was no longer working with Angela. However we said we would still meet up on the weekends and at least do our long runs together. But shortly after that, she changed jobs as well and her new work schedule was not really conducive to us running together. I was getting pretty worried about having to train for this marathon on my own. Fortunately, I met and became friends with a coworker, Dave, and quickly found out that his wife Kimberly was also going to do the Space Coast marathon AND it was her first full marathon (same thing happened to her with registration) AND she was looking for a training partner AND she was about the same pace as me. It seemed too good to be true but we started running together. Our first few runs went great and soon after that, another coworker joined our running group too. It really worked out great having three people because it meant usually at least two of us could make it and if one person had a bad day/run there were still two others to cheer them up!
We trained for 18 weeks and then at the end of Thanksgiving weekend the race was finally upon us. Kimberly and I had decided to do the entire race together and her sister Lessa was going to run with us also. We started the race feeling good and excited to see our cheer team along the course. The experience was a really great one! We didn't have to walk at all until around Mile 24 and even then it was only very brief periods. My main goal was to just finish and not get injured but my stretch goal was 4:30 (although i'd have been happy with anything under 5hrs). But we made it just in time and finished in 4:29:35! That's about a 10:18 pace so it means that we weren't going super fast but we definitely weren't walking much. I'm not ready to sign up for another full marathon right now but I can't say I'd never do one again. When i was training I thought I'd never do one again but now I can hear that 4hr mark calling my name :) I'm not ready yet...but maybe one day. I'm so grateful for a loving husband who patiently let me arrange our social life around my running schedule and of course all my family and friends who supported me along the way.
After I signed up for the race, I changed jobs and was no longer working with Angela. However we said we would still meet up on the weekends and at least do our long runs together. But shortly after that, she changed jobs as well and her new work schedule was not really conducive to us running together. I was getting pretty worried about having to train for this marathon on my own. Fortunately, I met and became friends with a coworker, Dave, and quickly found out that his wife Kimberly was also going to do the Space Coast marathon AND it was her first full marathon (same thing happened to her with registration) AND she was looking for a training partner AND she was about the same pace as me. It seemed too good to be true but we started running together. Our first few runs went great and soon after that, another coworker joined our running group too. It really worked out great having three people because it meant usually at least two of us could make it and if one person had a bad day/run there were still two others to cheer them up!
We trained for 18 weeks and then at the end of Thanksgiving weekend the race was finally upon us. Kimberly and I had decided to do the entire race together and her sister Lessa was going to run with us also. We started the race feeling good and excited to see our cheer team along the course. The experience was a really great one! We didn't have to walk at all until around Mile 24 and even then it was only very brief periods. My main goal was to just finish and not get injured but my stretch goal was 4:30 (although i'd have been happy with anything under 5hrs). But we made it just in time and finished in 4:29:35! That's about a 10:18 pace so it means that we weren't going super fast but we definitely weren't walking much. I'm not ready to sign up for another full marathon right now but I can't say I'd never do one again. When i was training I thought I'd never do one again but now I can hear that 4hr mark calling my name :) I'm not ready yet...but maybe one day. I'm so grateful for a loving husband who patiently let me arrange our social life around my running schedule and of course all my family and friends who supported me along the way.
Now that I've tackled a full marathon...what's next? Probably not an ultra marathon. Maybe a Half Ironman? Or just getting faster at the race distance i've already done? We'll see what the New Year will bring!
