You can’t have the best workout ever, every day.

Last time I started training for a marathon, I remember feeling this sense of, “This is it? It really doesn’t start out that hard.”

I was so ready to start training after my first half-marathon in April, and the marathon wasn’t until October. We started four weeks before the program’s scheduled start, with the plan to repeat weeks 4-8 twice. We ended up starting over at week 1 when the time came, because it doesn’t start out that hard, but it gets hard soon enough.

So today was the first run of marathon training round 2. I did 3 miles in the treadmill, because it was snowing out. I listened to dance music and ran most of it hard so I could get out of there sooner. Done in 27 minutes.

Last time around, marathon training was a step down from what I had been doing in preparation for it. This time, for the past several weeks 3 miles a day has been my standard, and as a first training run, it felt a little anti-climatic. Psychologically, I really own/enjoy that kind of distance. It’s not like surmounting the challenge it was at this time last year.

There’s a good blog in the New York Times yesterday about overtraining: Personal Best: Workouts have their limits, recognized or not.

“People think a good workout is, ‘I am in a pile of sweat and puking,’ ” said William Kraemer, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut. But if that happens, he said, “it means you went much too quickly, and your body just can’t meet its demands.”

It’s not so easy to strike the right balance between exertion and rest, researchers say. Do too little, and the results may be disappointing.

The article goes on to talk about the importance of recovery in training, which isn’t new ground but still good to read. And to remember, even in times like this when I feel ready to push it but I know I need to conserve my energy/passion for those 48-mile weeks in April. The plan I’m following is one that’s worked for thousands of runners just like me.

No getting burned out on treadmill running in January for this girl.

Tomorrow is five miles at race pace. My marathon pace was 11:23/mile (4:57) and even though I said I didn’t have any time goals for this race, I’m going to aim, at this stage, for 10:30/mile race pace (4:35-ish). Almost one minute off my first marathon pace in 6 months of training is ambitious, and maybe unreasonable, but I’m buoyed by my recent training runs. Plus, that first marathon was miserable. So rainy. That had to have a negative impact, right?

 

 

Pattie Reaves

About Pattie Reaves

I'm a new mom and renegade fitness blogger at After the Couch. I live in Brewer with my husband, Tony, our daughter Felicity, and our two pugs, Georgia and Scoop.