This is a look at the 23 weeks leading up to the marathon. The red boxes are the days I ran, black indicates days off, and yellow is weekly totals. The 2 weeks of no running occurred when I thought something was wrong with my foot. The light colored red boxes indicate runs on a treadmill. Out to the right of the weekly totals are the days I ran that week. At the bottom you can see some of the records for this training period.
I only averaged 29.23 miles a week. Despite having some really good weeks, my average was pretty low. I just could not seem to stay consistent. Perhaps the worst part of the entire thing for me was how early I peaked. I did my best running 6 weeks to two months before the marathon. I am not really sure why I fizzled like I did, but I think it was nerves. On March 28th I ran 14 miles at a pace of 7:30 and it felt amazing. I still had 5 weeks to train and should have been able to easily turn a run like that into a 3:30 marathon. That is, if I would have continued to train at the same intensity. The three weeks leading up to the marathon I only averaged 21.53 miles. I took the tapering thing way to seriously.
Perhaps the hardest stat for me to swallow is that I averaged 4.087 days a week of running. This was mainly because I would get up turn off my alarm and go back to sleep. I only had 3 weeks when I ran 6 days and 1 when I ran all 7.
My record for the most miles in 4 days I still think is impressive. In 4 days I managed to run 42 miles. Unfortunately I did that in early December and never even came close to that again.
Lastly, not only did I run too little but the running I did was not well rounded. The vast majority of my runs were easy or tempo runs. I did very little hill work, fartlicks, or intervals.
Needless to say I can change a lot that will prepare me much more for my next marathon. After this week of mostly rest I will have 23 weeks to train for the next one. I will be looking at my plans side by side and my hope is that I blow this one away.
I hope to improve in 3 main areas.
1. Run more miles
2. Run more days a week
3. Mix up the running more and get the most out of my runs
If I am able to maintain consistency in doing all of these things I know I will blow away my time from this past Sunday. To hold myself more accountable this time I will be displaying my training program some along the way.
3 comments:
It sure looks like you have some great ideas and thoughts on your training. You'll definitely keep getting better and better!
I am finding that I improve the most by running more miles more consistently. I think you hit the nail on the head when you note the inconsistency that you had.
consistency is key! i totally thought you were running way more than you were. i was always impressed by your daily run posts - speedy! now you need to work on consistency and increasing the mileage. (slowly of course). were you following a plan? hal higdon, pfitz, daniels? maybe having the feeling of a 'workout assignment' will help?
you can successfully train for a marathon running 4 days a week, with each of those workouts having a purpose. hopefully you can work out a schedule getting in 5 days so your total weekly mileage is more in the 40-50mile range. my training for my first went about the same - 20-30 mile weeks (um, one with only 7 miles!) and i bonked hard. so don't feel too bad :) after my own experiences, i definitely think i need a min of 40-50 miles. i know you've learned a ton and will adjust your approach for #2! huge pr to come :)
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