Long Lost Post - Training Struggles (Written 8/29)

So, I found these blog entries written months ago that I never posted. Since they were already written I figured I’d post them to have the full record of Richmond training posts on the blog.


Training struggles

*written 8/29

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time or energy for the blog… It’s been more fun having Ian than I imagined, but also very exhausting.

In fact, exhaustion is the number one thing I struggle with as far as marathon training goes. Ian started out as a pretty good sleeper, but over the last month or so that has all changed. He is waking up a lot, and thus so am I. The lack of sleep at a time when my body is under the duel demands of breastfeeding and marathon training make mild exhaustion chronic and acute exhaustion crop up every few weeks.

Lack of sleep is more troublesome to me than finding the time to run. After a few weeks of struggling with the timing of runs without my mom around to watch Ian, I realized that getting up at 5 to run is the only way to make it work. Luckily Bennett realized that he needs to get back in shape, and he came to the same conclusion about 5am workouts, so we can help each other. We figure the more consistently we get up at 5am, the faster it will become routine. So we are trying to get up that early, or close to it, 6 days a week with one lazy day. This holiday weekend is the exception J

I’m progressing through my training pretty well, although the heat and humidity were really getting to me for a few weeks. This summer I seem to be dealing particularly badly with the heat and humidity. Thankfully it’s almost fall. I don’t remember struggling so much with summer running while training for MCM. Maybe I just blocked it out, haha.

After a truly terrible 13 mile run in early August, and a few weeks of no energy, I feared I was pushing my body too far too fast. It’s possible I was somewhat, but I also realized I wasn’t eating enough. So that has been a big focus for me over the last month or so…how to eat enough without resorting to too much junk food. This is harder than it sounds. First to drag around that much healthful food with me is really a challenge. Second, with constantly changing mileage and varying hunger levels of Ian, I have no idea how much I should actually be eating. So, it is an ongoing experiment.

I have taken so many editorial liberties with Hal Higdon’s training schedule this time around, that I don’t know if I can even say I’m following his schedule. I hope I know what I’m doing enough that I’m not over training myself. I’ve added in hills and tempo runs, which I’ve done before. I’ve rearranged rest weeks and repeated weeks to get the right balance and better work with Megan’s and my schedule. This time around, Megan suggested that I try for a 22 mile run as my longest. So, in addition to 2 20 milers, I will be doing a 22 miler 3 weeks before the marathon. I’m hoping that will prove to be a helpful decision.

I have no idea at this point what a realistic time goal is for Richmond. I guess that will have to come closer to the race.