Marathon Plan

Start of Rocket City.  I ran it that year!!!

SO, I am running the Rocket City marathon in Huntsville on December 8th.  I have run this marathon probably 6 times; maybe more.  I know the course, the weather is always good, it is relatively inexpensive and it is approximately one hour and 15 minutes away from my house. A couple of times,  I have driven down the morning of the race.  Also, another sticking point, it is a small marathon, relatively uncrowded, and there is never a time when you have to elbow around corners because the course is tight and there are so many runners.  All around, it is a great race.

This year, I was even organized enough to reserve my hotel room in advance, so I can walk to the race start.  Being organized enough to get a great hotel room is a first for me.  Normally, I have to drive down the morning of the race OR spend the night in a hotel room across town and get a shuttle to the race at which point I am a bundle of nerves.  So, I am pretty thrilled that at 36 years into my life 6 or so years into racing this particular marathon, I have it together.

I have been working on my training plan all week.  It is sort of a chess game with trying to incorporate my biking and swimming in with my run schedule.  I need a day of speed work (probably Tuesday mornings)  and some long runs on Saturdays and I also need a temp run at some point (probably Tuesdays).  I am really enjoying my bike rides and I do not plan to give up swimming.  I think I need a day off where I am just doing yoga or some such in the way of strength training.

SO, all of these ideas are slowly making their way into a spread sheet that I will have coordinated by next week.  I am going to put off speed work as long as possible, maybe until October. For speed work, I have to be at the track at 5:00 AM, (misery!!!) and speed work is just overall pretty disagreeable.  I am designing my training plan to start next week.  Hopefully can publish my spread sheet tomorrow!