Marathon Training Has Begun!

Running a marathon has been a goal of mine for eight years.  I started running my last year of college (sure, I ran track in high school but 400 hurdles is not the same thing as going out for a six mile run for the enjoyment of it) and have periodically faded in and out of 'running phases' since then.  When we first moved to Chicago, I would have to push Dan out the door to do a run with me (especially in the winter)... and he would whine the whole time.  But then we trained for a Nike One Hit Wonder 10k together and he was hooked.  I really love that this is an activity that we do together.

So back to today.  We are registered for the Chicago 2010 marathon and as of now our runs are feeling great.  There were a few lessons learned from our half marathon training last year and even a few things we have noticed thus far into our current training... so there are going to a lot of rules in our house for the next several months.

1. Have to be out the door for our runs by 6:30am.  Races start early and doing evening runs for training feels a lot different as we discovered through the half marathon.  And helps beat out some of the summer heat.

2. No thai food.  No heavily processed food.  Nothing that makes us feel like crap, get heartburn, etc.  There has been a lot of simple meals like salads and pasta with fresh herbs and grilled chicken.

3. We have to shut off all electronics (tv, computer, etc) at 9:30pm. Otherwise we will be full of regret when the morning alarm goes off.  Neither of us are morning people and our downfall is going to bed early enough as it only takes one of us to say "lets just watch one more episode of Weeds" to become a spiral towards late nights.

4. The training plan is non-negotiable.  I know that people say you should give yourself flexibility with everything but the long runs.  But if you have ever read the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie... we are like the cute little mouse.  If we start to think about that training plan as being fluid before long we will be missing miles and trying to reshift an already packed schedule.  So for us, it is best to be committed to that training schedule (which is loaded into our shared Google calendar). 

I am so excited for the whole process of the marathon. It will likely be a 'once in a lifetime' event and so we want to make it count.