Making a plan

50 Weeks Until Marathon

 It is well known that I am a planner, almost comically so. In this case, I think my obsessive planning may work in my favor. I really want to finish this race, and while I there's a ton of time to train and be ready, I know that life has the potential to get in the way, especially as the owner of a retail store. So I embraced my newfound love of bullet journalling and decided to set up a training plan to tackle this bitch. After reading a number of articles, asking running friends and marathoners what they recommend, and taking into account the demands of my schedule and the training opportunities offered by the charities I'm deciding between, here's what I think will be the most realistic plan for me.


First 8 weeks: Revisit and complete the Couch to 5K program.
I struggle with pacing and stride, even after running races for 5 years. I find a comfortable pace while training, and then the race arrives and I'm so excited in the crowd that all my training goes out the window. So for the first 8 weeks (or so), I'm going to start from square one with a focus on finding a comfortable pace and stride with the Couch to 5K program. This will also help get me back into a regular running schedule where I'm running at least 3 days a week. (I haven't run at all since last June!)

Next 8 weeks: Enter Hal Higdon for 10K training.
After asking my running pals for training recommendations, Hal Higdon's name kept coming up over and over. I like his program for 10K training because it builds on the schedule and distances I'm used to while adding a cross training day. I like that by the time I'm done I'll be able to do a comfortable 6 miles, which will get me ready for my next phase in training. I've decided to go with the 10K novice program (now and throughout my training) so I don't push myself too hard and get injured. After all, I just want to finish, not qualify for Boston.

This brings me to roughly the first week of February, assuming I've kept up with training. Almost all of the training programs I've considered (not including whatever training is offered by selected charity) start training about 16-18 weeks prior to the race date. That means I've got 3-4 months before I start the final leg of training. During this time I plan to work on maintaining regular running and cross training schedule, and I plan to officially join the DG running club out of Peak Running. I'll certainly run the Shamrock Shuffle in early April (it's a tradition, after all), and I may find another race that will help me get used to a race pace; we'll see what comes up during that time.

The final stretch: Chicago Endurance Sports.
Both charities I'm considering (American Cancer Society and Leukemia Lymphoma Society) offer training and mentoring programs, and I believe both of them partner with CARA or Chicago Endurance Sports. Again, those in the know highly recommend CES, and who am I to disagree? So the final 19 weeks will be spent in their marathon training program out of the Elmhurst Fleet Feet, running with the run club, and heading into the city to do weekly long runs with Kim. I'm sure there will be organized runs and coaching sessions with my charity mentor too. As we get closer to this stage of training, I'm sure I'll have a firmer idea of what this looks like and I'll share it here.

So that's it! It's true that my original training plan was "Register. Regret registering. Pray [for 48 weeks]. Get to the start line. Hope for the best. Throw myself around 26 miles of Chicago. Finish. Cry. Barf. Pass out. [Eat Pancakes] Get a massage." All of these things will most likely happen, TBH (well, hopefully not the barfing part). But at least I can have more of a race plan than "plan" and "hope for the best". Onward!