Tag: marathon

MarathonTrainingTips

Road To Marathon Brabant 2013 – Training Through Summer

So last time I talked about my decision process to go for the marathon. Right now I’d like to explain how my trainings went.

We’re talking late June 2013. I have my heart rate zones and a rough training plan.
I have no week-to-week plan and seriously doubting whether I need one.
The problem back then was that I went running when I had time. Generally this meant 3-4 times per week, but it was no guarantee. With summer approaching I decided to not be to strict on myself, just train as much as I can with crude guidelines.

  • Weekends are for the LSD runs at a heart rate of max 135
  • One training run is in Zone 1
  • One training run is an interval that consists of zones 3 or 4
  • One training run is in zone 2

I supposed if I kept this in that order I would improve enough over summer to start a x-week plan begin september.

August2013July2013
Summer total: 396km (246 miles)

I ended up running almost every week 4 times so everything actually went very well.

For only being fulltime into running since February I was very pleased with myself and could start a final countdown towards October 27, 2013.

More later!

Feel free to let me know if you like my story 🙂

I Ran Again! (120′ LSD)

YouTube movie: The song that got inexplicably stuck in my head for 70% of my run…

I finally ran again!

So the last 2 weeks I have lacked motivation and was feeling not 100%
Aside from some speed work Tuesday it has been slow…

This morning I was determined to go running.
Depending on my daughter’s hungry hour I would take off for something between 15 and 25km (9-15 miles).

When she woke I first checked “The Flags”.
A downside of living at the coast is the wind. I can see a row of flags from my house and they help me estimate how windy it is and when I will have the wind in my back.
TheFlags

It didn’t look all that good… 9m/s apparently, but hey, I was determined, so after feeding my daughter I layered up and headed off.

I ended up with 21km (hooray HM) but my heart rate was constantly too high so all in all it’s one to forget soon. Most positive is that hopefully it gets me started back into a routine…

To end: random picture from during my run!

Coast running
Coast running

Tonight off to a wedding to add all my lost calories 😉

  • Ride Name:
  • Distance: 0 km
  • Elevation Gain: 0 m
  • Moving Time: 00:00:00
  • Location:

Strava Endomondo

IthoughtItWasrum

Road To Marathon Brabant 2013 – The Decision

Marathon.
42.195 kilometers.
26 miles and 385 yards.

As you can read in short in my About page I have gone from zero to marathon in less than a year. Which means the journey towards it has been full of anticipation.

At first I just liked being active and getting in shape, but soon I found out I actually liked running.
Running gave me a certain calm and gave me time after a busy day to clear my head.

So after training for a couple of months I found out running goes well for me. I see improvement, but start to stagnate.
Time to find some theory that can support me.

I started reading up on Long Slow Distance, watching your heart rate, make sure you don’t produce lactic acid in slow runs, minding your posture, stride, foot landing, … and started putting it in practice.
This wasn’t always easy (I’m sure some post will once go about my cursing on midfoot landings), but I did see I was getting better all the time. Sometimes barely noticeable, some weeks I amazed myself.

After my 5k race that started all my trainings (read the recap here) I wanted a new challenge and decided I wanted to go for the big leagues: marathon!

After some talk with the Mrs. I decided to undergo a medical screening, lactate test, vo2Max test etc. so I could decide if I was built for it, wouldn’t crash during race day and if our joined schedule could find the time for all the trainings.

The calendar got filled out, the appointment at Mensana set for the medical part and just like that the decision got made for sure.
I was going to run a marathon.

How my training went? I’ll write about it in a not so distant future.

 

Have you ever run a marathon? How did you decide about it?
Have you taken a medical exam as well? Why (not)?
If you haven’t run one, do you want to?