Marathon Training Begins!

What have I gotten myself into? It’s 105 degrees and it’s time to start 18 weeks of marathon training!

I signed up for the Tucson Marathon with my running group, RunEatTweetAZ.  It takes place on December 6 in Tucson, AZ and it will be my 11th full marathon!

I found myself in a similar predicament last summer when I signed up for the Detroit Marathon. It was in late October, so I started in mid June. At first,  I really struggled getting up and out the door to get my long runs in. If you don’t start by 6am in phoenix in the summer, you are toast!  I ended up joining 2 running groups – one to help me with my weekday runs and one to help me with my long run.  It worked!  I had some accountability to make sure I got out there early. I won’t say it was fun.

Here are some pics from training last summer...

I developed a few bad habits along the way.  I really pampered myself for making the sacrifice to be out in heat. I started taking a bunch of walking breaks. Pretty much every mile I would stop and drink water and Gatorade. For some reason I can’t run and drink successfully at the same time.  This translated into me needing to take walk breaks during the second half of the marathon. You can read about my Detroit experience here. It certainly wasn’t due to heat (it was about 30 degrees), but I realized that how you train is how you’ll race.  Hoping to push myself harder this time around.

Once again, I’ll be using the Hal Higdon Intermediate plan.  My goal is to beat my best time, which is 4:24.  I purposely chose a downhill race to improve my chances.  And I have lots of friends from RunEatTweetAZ joining me, so that’s got to help too, right? 

If you’re looking for a downhill race later this year, you might want to consider joining us!

Use RET10 to save 10%! #RunEatTweetAZ