Spring Marathon Goals: More mileage, more speed, one crazy training plan.

So it's been a few weeks since my half marathon in Dallas, and I've been trying to recover and rest up as best I can for my next marathon training cycle.

Pffffft--who am I kidding?!?  Of course I already set my spring marathon goal (for the Glass City Marathon) in the My Run Plan training app and it's already got me training like a beast this week.

This is my best beast mode.  I'm sorry.

And by "beast" I mean "just like I did at the peak of my half marathon training."  Check out my mileage chart for this week below:

App had me running 10 miles for a long run yesterday, which is what I topped out at during half marathon training.  Looks like a lot of big miles in my future....and I know this is the case because I downloaded my whole plan from the app and already freaked out at some of the workouts.  Because that's good for your motivation, right?  Right.

I also made the mistake of setting my time goal at 4 hours in the app, which means that the app scheduled some crazy insane workouts for me as a thank-you (but didn't adjust my paces accordingly...grrr).  Let me give you a breakdown of the workouts in this plan, just so everyone can see what I'm getting myself into:

• Speed work. Now, I always do speed work in any training plan I take on, and I'm always up for some 400s or 800s.  But it seems that this plan has me doing mile repeat after mile repeat after mile repeat....which thankfully are my fave.  Not really--I hate them with a white-hot hate.  But they're good for me, so I do them.  While consumed by hate.  So healthy.
• Tempo/Threshold Runs: Again, these are a normal part of any of my training plans.  However, when I looked ahead in the plan and saw "Run 1:20:00 @ 9:19" my brain kept trying to translate that into one minute and 20 seconds.  When my brain realized the truth about that number, I thought I could hear some soft sobbing and whimpering.
• Long runs: Again, a staple of any marathon training plan.  This plan has me maxing out at 21 miles for the long run, with two of that distance on the plan.  The difference this time is that I plan on throwing some marathon-paced segments into some of the shorter long runs (12-16 miles) just to get my legs used to that pace.  I really think that was one of the reasons I started to crash and burn at mile 20 last spring (along with my nutrition)--my legs had never actually run at my chosen pace a lot during training, so they weren't prepared to carry me at that pace for all 26.2.  Since the app is generating my paces based on my fastest result, it's actually predicting a 4:04 finish...and is assigning paces to workouts based on that slower goal time.  Since I want to hit 4 hours or below, I'm going to have to practice running at my race pace throughout the training cycle in order to nail that goal.
• One more day of running. Not that I always believe more is better, but I did give myself one more day of lower-mileage running per week.  Why? So I can have some short marathon-paced runs during the week.  These aren't going to be the same weeks as those spiced-up long-runs I mentioned earlier, but I did notice on the copious sub-4-hour training plans I looked at that they all had short marathon-paced runs during the week at some point.  If I start to get overtrained, however, these runs will be the first to go or modified into easy pace runs.
• 50+ mile weeks, anyone?  I made one last mistake of looking at the total miles for each week of my plan...and noticed there are some 50-ish mile training weeks.  I haven't done weeks with that mileage in a LONG time (since I trained for my first ultra), but they don't start happening until March..so hopefully my poor legs will have become accustomed to the abuse of this plan by then.

If you'd like to see my plan in spreadsheet format, feel free to click here.  Hopefully all this training and weight loss craziness will translate into a crazy marathon PR, but at a bare minimum I know it will translate into large dog being ecstatic to run one more day a week with me.

Well, he would look ecstatic if he would actually look at the damn camera.  But I know for a fact he wants you to read the non-learning learnings that always come at the end of one of my posts:

• I scoured the internet for at LEAST an hour looking at every sub-four marathon training plan I could find, so I'd say this training plan of mine is well-researched.
• And by "well-researched" I mean "like a high school student does research before writing a paper the night before it's due"
• If you need me in the month of March, leave a message because I'll be running thanks.
• I have a feeling my foam roller and massage chair are going to become BFFs this winter.
• I need to forget I ever saw the training plan ahead of time and just do each run as it comes...so I won't realize how much this is really going to hurt.

Glass City Marathon Weekend: Some 5K and some art appreciation

So the twin and I are in Toledo, OH for the Glass City Marathon weekend, which you already knew if you have been reading all of my blog blatherings as of late.  We got into Toledo on Friday night, went to the expo and grabbed our packets, visited with friends who were nice enough to cook us dinner, and then went back to the hotel and promptly went to bed because hey--5K on Saturday morning.

Coffee and three nuts.

Obligatory start line selfie.

Look at all those beautiful 5kers.

Why did we do a 5k the day before a marathon?  Shake-out run.  And more blingity-bling.

I ran with the twin sis, and we ran really easy because we both have really really long races tomorrow.  She ended up PR-ing, and I ended up posing with rocket people and doing weird stretching exercises after the race.

FYI: Rocket Girl's helmet was SPARKLY.

I call this stretch, "The Idiot."

After the 5k, we headed back to our friends' house to shower and have post-run coffee.

 We then headed out to try and appreciate some art.

Ready to appreciate the crap out of things.

Here's the art I most appreciated:

WTF MONKEY PEOPLE

We were lucky enough to catch a glass blowing demo at the museum, because Toledo is the Glass City, after all.

I was constantly thinking HE IS GOING TO DROP
THAT I KNOW HE IS

We then went out to eat and had an excellent dinner so I had the energy to lay out my flat self for the marathon tomorrow, during which I will keep repeating that what doesn't kill me will get me a PR.

And now it is time for this little marathoner to grab some sleep--a 7 AM start means a very early morning.  But it's never too early (or late) for some learnings:

• How awesome are those Saucony leggings I was wearing?
• Super awesome, that's how awesome.
• Twin sis got to ring the PR bell and I got a picture but I was not allowed to post it here because she is a big weenie.
• The glass blowing demo was seriously cool.  And the dude knew all the science behind it and it was amazing.
• My tie-dye shoes are amazing, too - and hopefully they will snag me a PR.

Tomorrow's workout: 26.2 miles around Toledo.

Don't mind me; I'm just having a little pre-marathon freak-out.

I fully intended to do some yoga this morning.  Really.

But then I realized I wanted to listen to my scary stories while working out, and usually doing that sort of thing during yoga is frowned upon.  So instead I hopped on the stationary bike for a quick 30 minute sweaty low-impact ride in my teeny tiny biking space.

Because doors are a common occurrence on an outdoor course.

I enjoyed both of my scary stories immensely, by the way.  In case you're interested in listening to someone read you scary stories because it's fun to listen to them while you're running at dark o'clock in the morning, my favorite is the NoSleep Podcast because the sound quality is the best and the stories are all pretty much awesome and do keep me up at night on a regular basis.

But enough about my podcast obsessions.  I mentioned yesterday that I have a marathon on Sunday, and I'm kind of freaking out about it.  It's in Toledo (the Glass City Marathon), and even though I've run this marathon every year since 2013, I'm still panicking a bit. Small dog has captured on his outsides how I feel on the inside.

You're running a marathon....are you going to die?

I'm freaking out because I really want to hit at least one of those goals I wrote yesterday (even the last one would be acceptable if all else fails).  And while I'm freaking out about that, I thought it would be nerve-calming to share with you some other things I'm freaking out about, which are my usual pre-marathon freak-outs:

• Tights, capris, or shorts? (decisions, decisions)
• Will I forget to bring my gels and then have to scavenge some at the expo like I normally do? (most likely)
• Why did I sign up to run the 5K the day before the marathon!?!? (Because there was no 10K)
• Will I remember to bring pajamas? (No.)
• Can I convince the twin sis (who is going with to run the half marathon) to learn to love my scary story podcast as much as I do? (Highly unlikely)
• What if it's windy on race day?!?!? (Suck it up, buttercup)
• What if I don't put on enough body glide? (Uh-oh)
• What if I eat too much fiber the night before? (Dear lord no don't let that happen)
• Will I remember that running a marathon is hard and it's going to freaking hurt in the last 10K? (Gosh I hope so)
• And finally....will I repeat "what doesn't kill me will get me a PR?" over and over again in my head for 26.2 miles? (Absolutely, probably through tears at some point)

I may be wrong, but I'm probably worrying just a tad too much.  I'll need to take the freaking-out down a notch or two and chill out...maybe to this level:

Super chill zone.

OK, maybe too much.  But there's never too much when it comes to learnings:

• Seriously-check out the NoSleep Podcast if you want some good scary stuff read to you once a week.
• If I had a nickel for every time I forgot to pack pajamas....I'd have a lot of nickels.
• I have to remember to take it easy during the 5K on Saturday.  No one wants a repeat of what happened in Ft. Worth where I was having a tantrum by mile 14 after going out too hard on the 10K the day before.
• Tights, capris, or shorts? Probably capris.
• I kept mistyping the word "shorts" as "whorts" and I was laughing my head off during the entire post.
• Could I have any more bullet points in this post?  Absolutely.

Tomorrow's workout: 3 miles at marathon pace.  Easy peasy.