And So It Begins

I finally dragged my lazy butt out of my house and did my first training run for the Twin Cities Marathon at the beginning of October. I left at 1:30. In the mid-day sun. It was warm - not hot - but plenty warm. At mile two I started to get a cramp in my left quad. I NEVER get cramps. It wasn't bad so I kept running. A couple miles later, I started to get a cramp in my right quad. Again, I NEVER cramp. I just kept going because they weren't debilitating or particularly painful. 

What did I learn? Uh, well, maybe hydrating before a run entails more than two cups of coffee in the morning, two glasses of orange juice at lunch and a large glass of Gatorade right before you head out. Duh! So now I sit with sore quads. Luckily I don't run again until Tuesday.

So what is the plan for the marathon, you might be asking? (I know you aren't, but I'm going to bore you with the details anyway.)

My past marathons I have been training with the greatest group of women with whom to run. This time around no one is willing to train with me (that I am aware of, anyway.) We all still want to run together, it's just that everyone is in the off season and just wants to stay in shape. So this time around I am kind of on my own. I looked back at past training logs, but I didn't keep the kind of notes and stuff that would be helpful, so I got a training plan from Runner's World's SmartCoach app. 

I plugged in my 1:33 half-marathon from this spring and it generated this:

If you look to the end it says that I should be able to run a 3:13 marathon. If I run that, I qualify for Boston by 7 minutes for my age group and 2 minutes for 35 - 39. Can I really do that if I follow this plan? 

If anyone has any experience with the SmartCoach training plans, please give me some feedback on whether or not they are good, accurate (I mean accurate as you can be - there are a lot of variables and unknowns) and/or well constructed. For now I am following it. 

I ran 7 easy miles today and averaged 8:12 miles trying to hold the 8:18 miles prescribed in the plan. Was it really an "easy" run? I didn't feel like I was working particularly hard. Could I easily hold that pace for another 13 miles or so in training? I think so. Am I in over my head? Probably, but I won't know for sure until I am actually drowning and by then it will be too late. Will I miss training with all the "ladies"? Yes! But it will only be for about 7 or 8 weeks and then the season is over and we are all back to trotting around the lakes and drinking coffee while it snows.