Training for Marine Corps Marathon: Week one million

Lame training cycle. Check. 

Marathon one week away? Check. 

I plan to "participate" rather than "race". 

Seriously.  What a weird freaking summer. 

And now, to pay thanks to the show that has saved my life since being stuck on the bike trainer.

How do I feel when I consider running/crawling 26.2 in a week?

Except I am

It's fine. I got hurt. I lived. 

Right?

And now... I'm going to just go. run. walk. drink beer. 

I have never gone into a marathon in such a state. 

I have NO idea. None

People keep saying "of course you are going to run fast! you always do!" 

And I'm like "hahahah but really"

Because, no

Anyway. No time to worry. Here we go. And....

Ever. In. My. Favor.

And in other news: my leg really is fully healed for which I am very thankful. 

Training for Marine Corps Marathon: Week 16

This should be the first taper week after. long, arduous summer of training. 

Since that didn't really happen, I'm looking at a marathon in 13 days while shaking my head a bit, and saying "what the hell is THIS!?" 

That being said, things are generally fine. 

What is fine:

-My leg is 100% pain free. I am healed.

-I had a very successful 1 hour 5 minute run on Thursday, with no ill effects. 

-I clearly am not overtrained! Yay

-I have succeeded in creatively training, and making lemonade out of lemons (as one does)

What could be better:

-Well, I could be a good bit more fit.

-Like, a great great deal more fit.

Last week was another good one, with a lot more running than I have been able to do. If this marathon was in 8 weeks, or even 6, I would be cautiously optimistic. 

But it is in 13 days. SO I AM VERY OPTIMISTIC. Yes I am.

I'm optimistic that I will finish.

I am optimistic about running each mile the way it needs to be run. 

I am cheerfully optimistic about having a solid adventure.

I am certainly optimistic about running a new course in a city that I really enjoy. 

Seven years ago me would already be re-injured trying to pull off a late in the game 20 miler. Seven years ago me would also be pretty stressed out, and probably a touch negative about the way this training cycle played out. Actually, seven years ago me would be losing her shit. 

Present day me seems to have learned some lessons, both in rolling with the punches, and in being more chill. Because I have accepted where I am at. Total peace with it. 

No, it's not ideal conditions for a BQ. But, I am now healthy and have created a good fitness base for winter training. 

I am about to run a race that many seem to consider one of the best, and this is exciting! Perhaps I will be able to enjoy it a bit more, with no real possibility of speed records on the horizon. 

So, what did I do last week?

Tuesday: 

30 minute run

30 minute bike

Thursday:

1:05 run

2 hour bike

Saturday:

40 minute run

30 minute bike

Sunday:

20 minute run

20 minute bike 

Training for Marine corps Marathon: Week 15

The unique training continues. It was a pretty busy and exciting week, but pretty active (thought not in the traditional "countdown to the marathon" way.)

Tuesday was "mile repeat" day on the bike. A 1 hour 20 minute workout, with 6x7 minute repeats that were uncomfortably hard. 

Tuesday was a 45 minute bike workout, and 15 whole entire minutes of PAIN FREE running!!

Wednesday was "long run" day, with a whopping 25 minutes of running (!) and 2 hours on the bike. 

On Thursday I traveled to Aspen, for several wonderful days with my sister. 

We were SUPER active (despite the elevation that she lives at- over 8,000 ft!) 

We did a total of 14 miles of hiking, and 14 miles of leisurely biking (but at altitude, still a workout!) Of course, we also rode gondolas, took scenic drives, enjoyed local food and beers (as well as sunsets on her deck, which offers the most incredible scenery!!) The two of us just happen to be active people , so the days were delightfully jam packed with adventure. 

Just a casual lake at 11,000+ feet

LOVE MY BIKE????? 

So, normally this would be the start of tapering. Given the lack of abuse that cycling workouts give your body, I plan to more or less chug along for the next couple weeks. My hope is to get my running time up to about an hour this week (like, an hour for one run) and see what happens. I am operating 100% pain free currently, and I plan to continue that trend. 

Training for Marine Corps Marathon: Week 14

So, to answer the unasked question:
It IS weird to train for a marathon without running. But it is happening! Who knows what this will lead to on race day, but I'm certainly putting in the effort.

Last week was a pain free leg week 100% of the time. I haven't said THAT in a while! Despite the pleasant surprise of a pain free life, I'm not trusting the little bugger.

Workouts:
-I spent 4 hours and 55 total minutes on either the bike, or elliptical (only 1:10 on the elliptical, as I must go to the gym to use the stupid thing.) (like, all week not in one go. duh)

-I did a 30 minute strength workout. go me.

-On Sunday, I ran for 10 minutes!! Miracle!

What I'm noticing, is that the time I am spending working out is not as high as it would be on a peak week if I was able to run (and was heathy, etc etc.) Honestly, I was about an hour short of total time this week. Part of this is due to my warm ups and cool downs being much shorter on the bike. If I ran mile repeats, my warm up would have been comparable (about 20 minutes) but I would have had a 20-30 minute cool down. On the bike, it was basically 5 minutes. On peak week, I also would have been running for about 40 minutes longer than I elliptical-d/biked for my "long run" attempt.
Honestly, these are not my normal forms of exercise and I DO have a background fear of sustaining some stupid secondary injury if I just go "ALL IN" too hard. So this is what it is, and where I am at. Enjoy following along on my cluster fudge adventure....!

I'm doing my best to replicate, on the bike, what I might be doing on a run.
For example, I did some speed work of 3x10 minutes at a challenging pace.
My "long run" was 1:10on the elliptical, and 1:10 on the bike.

Seriously. I have no idea what I'm actually doing, but I'm gonna wing it and see what happens. I'm certainly putting in solid work, and getting a sore butt out of it!