Wednesday, October 27

One Foot in Front of the Other

With just five training runs until the big day, my drive is flagging. Part of the problem is that no one warned me that tapering is hard! In fact, I was relieved when my marathon-veteran friend Carly told me that she had a hard time tapering, because I was really starting to think it's me. After all, my runs are now short, I'm feeling strong, and marathon day is in sight. But the thing is, the tapering runs make me feel unprepared. Another friend, Fishy, gave me this advice at the beginning of my training: It's better to undertrain than overtrain. And I know that tapering is crucial to a safe marathon. But I can't help but think, "Oh, I should be doing longer! I'm going to lose my strength! Maybe I should just do a few extra miles..."

I've been training with this program, Boston Fit, which is part of USA Fit, which has been around for a while. They've got the marathon thing down. But for the program, you do your long runs by miles on Saturdays and your weekday runs by time (so I'd run 40 minutes at tempo pace or 35 easy or 45 hills) and you only run four days a week. As a result, my runs are shorter than those on even the most relaxed training programs. However, I've been running consistently, I've done two 18-mile runs and one 21-mile run (which is one long run more than Boston Fit prescribes but my anxiety deemed it necessary)

And then there's the tedium. Oh, the tedium! I am so sick of all my local routes that I'm going buggy. I run now in the mornings before Adam leaves for work, so I can't go exploring for different routes. It's just out the door and down the street. Every run in my neighborhood is a hill run (which I know I'll appreciate during the marathon) but I just want a change of scenery!

Five training runs. Eleven days. I can do this....

2 Comments:

Blogger Robin said...

Is it the Boston Marathon or another one? My brother says the Boston is one of the most fun.

8:32 AM  
Blogger Jenny said...

It's actually the New York marathon. Boston doesn't appeal to me in the same way (although it would be great to do some way) because you either need to qualify for it (and I am *not* a fast runner!) or you need to buy a number from a charity. New York is a lottery-based marathon, so I it's really more a marathon of the people. :-)

Besdies, I've only lived here for two years and I lived in New York for seven years (not counting the first three years of my life--I was actually born there). I always said if I had one marathon in me, it would be New York!

6:24 AM  

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