Early into my novice marathon training, I’ve already broken a fundamental rule: Don’t attempt a marathon if you’ve been recently injured.
Well, duh. Of course I’m injured. I’m a runner. You know – one of those people half in denial, the other half in denial. Besides, isn’t that what physiotherapists and Ibuprophen are for?
Second rule broken today: Follow a training progam created by the pros. There are people who have the experience and science to build a program that incorporates the right amount of mileage, drills and recovery to avoid injury and deliver success. I decided to ignore this week's scheduled mileage.
It’s not that I think I know better – the closest I’ve come to a marathon is a marathon screening of Godfather movies. But I won’t have the time to do the required 18k next weekend because I’ll be in Vancouver at my niece’s wedding. Damn right that dancing counts towards my training but my orthotic-stuffed runners don’t go with my dress so it’s heels and reduced mileage.
If you're invited, you'd better show up
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But I can’t afford to miss out on the long runs – they are the foundation of marathon training. They build endurance, triggering changes in your body including increasing the capillaries in muscle fibers which enables more oxygen to get to your muscles. Your muscles also learn how to store more glycogen which the body can draw on, before getting depleted and fatigued.
If I expect to eventually run five hours past the bagel stands and yellow cabs in New York City in the fall, I have to train my body with increasingly long runs past the gardens and Starbucks in Victoria this summer.
So I decided to run 18K this week, not the 11K intended to give our bodies a rest after last week's 16K.
Perhaps a stupid decision on my part, but it's better than doing sprints up and down the church aisle, knocking bridesmaids out of my way.
Dilemma 2: I couldn’t run with my clinic pace group this morning, even if I wanted to. I needed to get my daughter to UVic for her morning swim practice at the same time my running group was marshaling at Willows Beach at 8 am. Groups are good. Running with other people distracts you from the brutal, unrelenting kilometer after kilometer.
Willows Beach
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So I decided to get creative. Some pals I often run with outside the clinic were running 10 kilometres, also on Saturday morning. So at 6:40 a.m., I ran to their meeting spot for 7 a.m., joined them for 40 minutes then ran back to my house where my daughter was ready with her bike to ride to UVic while I ran alongside.
After making sure all’s well at the pool, (she beat me there, of course), I continued running to do my total of 18K, getting back at the house in time to chug some chocolate milk, plunge my legs into a ice bath and get back to UVic.
Chocolate milk, the perfect recovery drink
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Yes, a marathon is serious business.
Yes, you need to put in the training.
But you also need to make the training work for you. If you don't think you have the time to do the required runs, ask your family for their patience and support while you duck out for a workout. Postpone that lunch with a friend for a week. Get to work early to you can fit in a run before dinner at home.
I know I have challenges ahead but I intend to be smart about it. Adapt where I can rather than abandon the effort. Yes it’s going to be tough. But if there’s strong will and good wine, there’s a way.
