I knew it was coming.

Sort of.

I was preparing for it.

Sort of.

But now the gauntlet has been thrown down by my running coach.    It’s Marathon Training Time.

Ruh Roh!

These last few weeks that I’ve been working with Caolan, the long running coach, have been preparing both of us for this.   Her getting to know my abilities.   Me getting to know her expectations and training ways.   It’s been working well.   Now it’s time to get serious.

Ruh Roh!

She sent me my training plan for the next two weeks with the miles building up which I was expecting.   We’ve talked about her thoughts on milage and I do know as we get further into training, the miles will build to about 40 a week.

Ruh Roh!

One of the things that I do like though is that she doesn’t think the dreaded 20 miler runs are necessarily warranted.   It’s really a case by case basis.   Some need it to mentally prepare to run a marathon, but since I’ve run one before I don’t need that mental aspect of it.    That is good, because I don’t think I could follow a plan that had 2 or 3 twenty mile runs in them.   This is not to say I will not have LONG runs, but they will be set on time.   Plus it might be multiple days of decent miles.   She feels it’s less wear and tear on the body and I will not argue with that thought process.   I like it.   Plus, we are working on getting my Plantar Fascitiis under control.   Per her suggestion, I’ve been heating instead of icing and it seems to be helping.

One thing that scared me in her last email though is the fact that she came to the conclusion on my last couple of runs that “those indicate that you can probably run faster .” 

  Damn.   Damn. Damn.

So now not only is she upping the miles, she is giving them a faster pace.   Not all as she still wants my recovery runs to be very slow, but other runs are going to speed up.

Ruh Roh!

I believe Mary said something to the effect of this on our way home from the Queens 10K,  “so your upset that your coach is making you do the things your paying her to do.”

Well yes and no.

Yes because it’s easy not to worry about where you finish when you are convinced your slower than you might actually be.   To actually try to go faster will be both a mental and physical challenge.    (You get what I’m talking about, don’t you Dawn:)

No because without her help I don’t think I would get to where hopefully I’m going to end up….

The finish line of the Marine Corps Marathon:)

Have you started your training yet?

What are you training for?