16 weeks to Dublin (training again)

First off:

Dr. P.P.: Those are some great pictures of B2B. It looks vaguely fantastic, in that wonderful sort of way. Although you have heard many congratulations from me behind the scenes, let me formally congratulate you on your smoking marathon result and remind you that my only living goal left is to beat your time by exactly one hour. (Just some context: I told the good Dr. that I wanted her to beat my marathon time because I knew her competitive nature would help push her forward over the last miles. And now, my own competitiveness is well served with an attempt to beat her time. Our relationship is predictable that way. :) )

Forest: Welcome Back! Don’t sweat your marathon time in Madison, I believe you currently have the current fastest marathon record in the group. You don’t have anything to prove. ☺

I have been running regularly since my half-marathon in January, but I haven’t been posting. It is my bad. This Spring I had a fantastic amount of written work due, and quite frankly I didn’t want to risk using up all of my good words on the blog and leaving myself empty for publications. I have similar philosophies about going to the driving range before a round of golf: I know I only have so many good shots in my body, and I don’t want to risk wasting them before the game even begins. So, just know there was plenty of running, but I simply didn’t feel like talking about it.

Know what else I didn’t do? Time it. The battery on my Nike+ died a few months ago, and I have been running completely commando in the watch department. It was refreshing to not worry about anything while logging my requisite 20 or so a week. If I only managed fifteen, or even thirteen miles a week, I didn’t sweat that either. In fact, I had two decent lay offs of about ten days that occurred when I twisted my ankle in London and then slit my foot open on a rusty pipe in Mauritius. The latter left a very lovely scar that I have begun to tell people was received during an emergency foot transplant. Starting now.

Speaking of Mauritius, I have finally run in the southern hemisphere in spite of the obvious risks of falling off the bottom of the earth. It was heavenly. We were limited by lack of sidewalks and we always had to run in pairs because of gangs of wild dogs (no lie), but the fresh air and the scenery were exquisite. I wanted to eat the whole island as I hustled up and down the same hill near our house. I wish I was officially training for a marathon then, so I could mark off another country in which I have run whilst training, but its cool. I’ll keep Mauritius in my heart nonetheless.

So I think I have established that Spring was a big grey area of aimless running. Summer and fall will be exactly like that, but only the total opposite. I have just started a 16 week plan for the Dublin marathon that promises to completely rock. I am a little reticent about it because it only has three runs per week, and I just don’t believe these plans have enough run days in them. Also, I know…I mean I KNOW, that nobody ever does the required cross training on the “off days” that makes these plans work. So I reserve the right to switch running plans halfway through to something else…but so far, I’m still pretty psyched. It has the tempo and speedwork I need to bring my time down, plus three savory 20 milers. I look forward to the tears.

Even though I am running with a new plan, my big focus this time around will be nutrition. I am not satisfied that I can repeatedly log sub 1:50 half marathons, complete 20 milers in under 3:10, and then show up for the marathon and only walk off with 4:52. It simply does not add up. And the more I flash back to my last marathon, the more I am convinced that the noon start, coupled with my only eating a small bowl of pasta four hours previous, conspired to my Bonking at 17 miles. In fact, I got in touch with a physical trainer a few months ago who advised me before I started training that I should run real slow in order to train my body to gain fuel from fat more efficiently, and to eat more. Lots more. So I said to myself, “Listen to THAT guy”. And I did. And I do. And I will. Food is going to be the fun part of this marathon. There is going to be a lot of it, and I sincerely hope that I put on a few pounds of blubber over the next couple of months, so that when I hit twenty miles my body just starts devouring itself like Pizza the Hut in Spaceballs. That’s when I know I will succeed.

Regular posts to come. I swear.