Tag Archive | marathon training

November 16, 2013

Dec30

For most, 11/16/2013 is not a special date. However, for me, I’m going to remember it as the day that I made the first step in changing my life. That was the day that I got certified to be a SPIN instructor. How all of this came about was months in the making, but certification day seems the right time to say it all changed.

How did it all begin? Well, I work out a lot as you probably know if you’ve read any past posts on here. And as part of that, I am always trying to find new ways to challenge myself. One of the things I do to cross-train is take Spinning® classes as my primary thing other than running. They both rank pretty high on my list of things to do.

Anyway, 2013 was the year that I was going to finish the marathon and as preparation for that, I decided I needed to start training to run 26.2 early so I decided to train for a spring half marathon. That meant running in the terrible winter months of February and March. Continue reading →

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Six Months

Sep29

Six months. Six long months of drudgery and slogging. Six months of terrible morning runs was what I did before I finally figures out how to have a fantastic morning run. Or I should say fantastic morning run first thing in the morning.

If I had my way, I would probably do all of my running at night. I just like it better then. I am awake and energized and evening runs are relaxing. However, this year I actually trained for races and because of doing long runs on the weekends of more than six miles, this was going to necessitate getting up to run early. For a time, I was able to get away with doing evening runs and still feeling fresh enough to run on the weekend early in the morning.

However, as marathon training progressed with longer runs on Fridays as well as the usual long run on Saturday mornings, morning runs were being necessitated on Fridays. And earlier in the week as well since I had to get to work and work super long hours. So it was up early to get the miles in. And it was not the most fun thing to do. Continue reading →

Being a Troublemaker

Jun23
Cricket Hill in Chicago, IL / Image by flickr user karbon69

Cricket Hill in Chicago, IL / Image by flickr user karbon69

I don’t ever set out to be a troublemaker because I have no reason to do so. However, last Saturday, I seem to have put myself in that position. It was my first group run with CARA for the summer marathon training program. I was pretty excited about it because this year I plan to finish the Chicago Marathon and hopefully get myself that much closer to ultimate running goal.

In any event, things were not bad to start. My pace group leader is a hugger, but that is ok. Even though I am not one, I felt prepared for the incoming hug when we met so I wasn’t in a foul mood to start the run. The group is pretty big and already I could tell from our second water stop of the day that there might be some people who will drive me bonkers. There is the lady who I would flat out call a jogger because when we stop, she will jog in place. Why people do that is beyond me because it really doesn’t do anything beneficial that I can see. I guess that some people think they cannot start again after a stop, but really, you’ll start again. Continue reading →