Week One of Training and My Marathon Dreams

The first week of training is almost done, so that's what? Nineteen to go?  : ) No problem!  It feels so incredibly good to be running consistently again, I don't even care about the long weeks of training ahead.  This morning, while on my glorious five mile run, I thought to myself "no wonder I have been so down for the past twelve weeks- I haven't been out the roads and I haven't watched the sun rise over the mountains in ages."

While running this morning, I also thought a little about my goals for this marathon. At this point I have three.  The most important goal is to complete the training and to complete the marathon.  Goal number two is to break 3 hours and 50 minutes.  (My PR is 3:51.16 - just a few seconds shy of 3:50.  )  And, of course, there's the classic, never ending goal of qualifying for Boston, which would require a 3:40, or less. I thought a lot about how I am going to get there this morning.  At most marathon expos, you can find these handy little bracelets with your goal time and the pace required to get you to the goal time.  Those never work for me.  It's too much math, too much pressure, they always make me feel like there is no lee-way.  So, I did a little calculating in my pea brain, and figured out what I want my twenty mile time to be, and then I figured out how much time I would have to finish the last six.  Then, I broke down the 20 mile time into two 10 milers.  So,  from my calculations, I think I need to run the first 20 in about 2 hours and 40 minutes.  And then, each ten miler should be 1 hour and 20 minutes.  That sounds do-able and a little less stressful.  With 2 hours 40 minutes, I would have at least an hour to finish the last 6.2 miles.  And, if I go over the alloted hour, which is likely, then I will still be very close to breaking the 3:50 goal.  (It's funny, all of this planning is a perfect example of "chunking"- a term that special ed teachers LOOOVE to use!)

I then checked out my 20 miler times from a race that I like to run in the fall.  Those times range from about 2 hours 45 minutes to 2 hours 53 minutes.  So, I'm going to have to run stronger and harder and faster, but I think it's quite possible.  In fact, I know it is!  : ) Winter running is my absolute favorite, which is crazy, right?  I think the temperatures are going to be just perfect to chase those dreams that are floating around in my head.