My training for the Boston Marathon is officially underway! Woohoo! After a rocky start (knee pain during my very first training run), things are looking up, and I’m feeling pretty great going into week 3 of training.
A bunch of you guys asked how I’m balancing running with CrossFit/KFIT, so I decided to share my training on CNC. The short answer is: I had to cut back. (I’ll write a more detailed post soon.) My marathon training plan calls for 3 days of running per week, and I absolutely need at least 2 rest days (because I’m old and my body doesn’t recover like it used to), which only leaves 2 days for CrossFit/KFIT. And I know once I hit those really high mileage weeks in my training plan, I’ll probably need an extra day of rest, so I might CrossFit/KFIT even less for awhile. But we’ll see how things go. Maybe my body will continue to adapt without injury. *fingers crossed*
Week of January 4th (18.3 miles)
- Sunday: Off
- Monday: 75-minute long run (9.26 miles)
- Tuesday: Off
- Wednesday: Basement workout
- Thursday: 45-minute run (5.02 miles)
- Friday: Off
- Saturday: 15/20/15 tempo run (5.6 miles)
Week of January 11th (21.7 miles)
- Sunday: Off
- Monday: KFIT
- Tuesday: 15/25/15 tempo run (6.25 miles)
- Wednesday: KFIT
- Thursday: 90-minute long run (9.58 miles)
- Friday: Off
- Saturday: 15/6 hills/15 (5.86 miles)
If you’re not familiar with tempo runs and hill workouts, here’s a quick explanation:
Tempo: If the tempo run is written as 15/20/15, it means you warm up and cool down for 15 minutes and then use the middle number as the duration in minutes of your tempo workout (20 minutes). The pace for the tempo workout should be faster than your marathon pace, but slower than your 10k pace. It’s running at a comfortably hard pace, but a pace that you can hold for the duration of the workout.
Hills: If the hill workout is written as 15/6 hills/15, it means you warm up for 15 minutes and then do 6 hill repeats, followed by a 15-minute cool down run. Our running coach recommended a hill with about 6% grade and that is about 60-90 seconds long. After each hill incline, you recover by jogging easy down the hill, totaling 3 minutes of running between hills.