Spring Marathon Training and Racing

About four times a year, I enter the magical place where dreams come true and I explore exotic lands. I run as much as I please, as slow or as fast as I please, and if I'm lucky there's a lot of dirt involved. I climb mountains, run through groves of trees hundreds of feet tall, and make snow angels. Enjoying running free from a training plan is liberating at first, but I know I tend to overdo it when left to my own devices, so it's good this time is limited. As of last week, my spring marathon training has begun.

Snow mountain playtime with Lanore.

Until I started writing this post that I realized I didn't share which race I was running in the spring. I assure you it wasn't intentional. I spent most of the fall caught up in training for CIM (ie- worrying about allergies first, then my hip) and other assorted adventures that forgot to blog about it. Here's a hint:

This girl found some SNOW!!!!!!!!!!

The North Pole Marathon! Okay, just kidding.

It's Boston. :) I'm not sure how many more marathons I'm willing to train and race hard, but I'd like another Boston Marathon before I decide. I'd like to go for a 3:25.  I know I've got a low 3:20s time in me, but we'll see if I can manage to coax it out in four months with an injury.

Had to dig back all the way to October to find this photo. I still can't believe I never posted it here!

I know, I know. Sounds ridiculous. The good thing is that my PT exercises have been working. Instead of tightness throughout my entire right side as it was in November, it's now localized to the place it began: my hip flexors. Through regular PT strength exercises and sports massages (ouch), I expect that I'll get this to go away, at least enough to train hard.

My current list of PT, oh so fun.

I'm using the same training style as before: 60-70 miles/week, peaking at 75. Six running days: three easy days and three focused training days (marathon pace, track, and long runs). I'm trying to add swimming in there, probably on one of the speed days. If it wears me out too much, I'll cut it. The main change will be to the paces.

Click to see a larger version.

I admit that I'm slightly afraid. I usually race a little slower than I train so I need my training paces to align more with a 3:23 time than 3:25 and holy crap that sounds fast. If the weather looks good (like Boston 2015, all rainy and 40 degrees is my idea of good), I'm goin' fast.

Then if the New England spring weather decides to crap on my racing plans, I'll stuff my pockets with Oreos and have a jolly happy time in Boston, restart the taper, and hit my local spring marathon instead. If you've been following long enough, you know that I've had more than enough really bad weather race days so it's always comforting to have a Plan B. (a few examples: 1, 2, 3.) It's three weeks after Boston so Avenue of the Giants would fit nicely as a backup plan.I'd probably go with a more conservative time there.

Avenue 2016: Course was kind to me then, maybe one more time?

I've got several races built into the schedule, with just one serving as a goal race, a half marathon on February 18th. Instead of marathon pace runs, I'll be doing half marathon pace runs between now and then to prepare for it. We'll see how it all works out.

I'm considering an additional tuneup race, either Foggy Bottom 10 Miler on March 12 or Redwood Wild River Run 15K on March 25. If I see that the weather looks good for either of these runs, I'll adjust the plan, taper for one of them, and race for time. If not, I'll aim to survive instead like I did last year.

Foggy Bottom 2016: 
Sopping wet finish kick vs. Mike, about the only guy my speed in the club who can start his kick half
a mile from the finish line and not lose steam.

My first race is on Saturday, a cross country style 5K in the local state park. I'll be thrilled if I can manage marathon pace for it. :)