Anne's Journey to the Marathon: Day # ONE

Enjoying ice cream at a shop in Portland (they had vegan options!)

Okay now we are back in real time. Since my last post I went on a very nice vacation and have been slowing increasing my runs to 3-6 miles each. I had some great runs in Portland, Crater Lake, Mendocino and around San Diego too. But the main news is that today is a big day for me.

It is day #1 of my official training for the Carlsbad Marathon in 26 weeks. Yeah, I am starting early. But this gives me extra time to start slowly, back off if needed (due to the plantar fasciitis or whatever), space for our 3 week trip to Europe and time to build back up to where I was last January after my last half marathon.

Biking in Portland

I have hired a coach. Her name is Megan Lund Lizotte. She has a lot of experience with coaching and running and winning races. I found her through the Competitor magazine. She had me fill out an extensive evaluation of my running and health history. She reviewed it and now has given me the start of a plan. I am going to have her guidance through this whole thing. However, I hired her for just one month to start to see how my feet behave. (and whether I can do what she asks). The first week has me doing this: Monday run 40-45 minutes, Tuesday ride bike 60 minutes, Wednesday run 35 minutes, Thursday off, Friday run 60 mins (20 mins at threshold pace), Saturday ride 70-75 minutes and Sunday run 60 minutes. Okay and that is just the first week which is easy as there are no strides, hill work, intervals etc. She will give me 2 weeks of workouts at a time. She sent me a very long email describing each workout and how to perform it. My first reaction after reading the email was Oh My God what have I gotten myself into. What was I thinking getting a coach? Was I thinking she was going to suggest what I have already been doing? (3, maybe 4 runs of varying length each week). Um, yeah I kind of was thinking that. And this is the easy, start anew, week.

Spending the night at the Fire Lookout in Oregon

See Aiden by the falls we hiked to in Oregon near the Fire lookout.

After my initial freak out, I decided I want to give this my best effort. I will just take each day and figure out how I can do what is expected that one day. I won't worry too much about the rest of the week or month. After all, as Kelly said to me this morning, I could just do the marathon in 2 days, crawling through the finish, cramping in my legs, diarrhea, passing out etc. But no, I want to do this thing the right way!