IM Louiville

IM Louiville
Bikes racked at Ironman Louisville 2010

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Training for Boston

"How's your training going for Boston?"

It's a question I've been asked lately on a regular basis. But here's the problem: I'm not really training. Or, at least I don't feel like I'm in training. Sure, I've been trying to get those long runs in every Saturday. And I say trying because there have been more than a few long run days that I've just bagged it after about half the suggested mileage. It can be pretty hard to be disciplined enough to get in a long run when it's -2 degrees outside with a windchill of -18 degrees. But it's either that or the treadmill, and I don't know what's worse.

I'm coming off a 17 miler this weekend (thanks, BC!) and I was just looking at the program and I'm off a week...should've done 18 miles this weekend. OK, not like that one mile is going to break the bank, but it does hit me mentally a little. So does the fact that I haven't been running hills. Someone just asked me that during the run this weekend, so now I have a little paranoia going on. Not only am I not putting in the necessary miles to have a strong marathon, I'm not training for the course! Uh oh, am I setting myself up for disaster?

Did I also mention I'm not really running during the week? I've been swimming a lot. Great, I'm working on the one thing that I probably can't improve so much. I went through the stroke analysis clinic, so I've been trying to make my improvements on that (the second session was this weekend, I'll talk about that later), but I'm thinking I probably shouldn't be neglecting the other parts of my training. Yeah, I think it's time I put together a training plan...yeah, since I have a half ironman coming up in 8 weeks! Not worried about that swim, though!

I think I fall into a funk every year around this time. December/January seems to be my time off. That gets me all fired up and thinking about goals and toward the middle of January I start getting back to a plan. But here we are, about a month later and it feels like races are so far off, it's easy to lose sight of what I'm trying to accomplish. And once the weather starts to improve, then I seem to get some of that motivation back. It will be so nice to run outside again with only ONE layer of clothing instead of the 2 (sometimes 3!) layers I currently wear to keep warm.

Just a few more weeks...we change the clocks, it will be lighter out and I will start to train for Boston!

5 comments:

Griz said...

I hear there are some hills at the Cary half. This should help a little.

MJ said...

You're right...forgot about Cary. Though I think I need a little more than just one day of hill work!!

Thanks for the reminder!

Anonymous said...

Boston has some hills, but it's primarily a downhill course.

http://www.csurun.org/maps/BAA/BAA_total%20copy.gif

The biggest uphill is less than 100 ft.

Anonymous said...

Boston is flat

John said...

it's bad when you start to pay attention to the sunrise and sunset times on the weather channel.....

daylight savings time comes early this year!