PORTLAND MARATHON TRAINING

Well it's almost time to start my official training for the Portland Marathon this October. I decided to do the 2013 Portland Marathon after the Shamrock Run in 2012. So I gave myself a nice 19 months to get ready. I didn't want to rush anything and really wanted to "build" up to it. I've built up to half marathon shape, but those next 13.1 miles are really going to be a challenge.

Since I gave myself so much time, training for the Portland Marathon has always been something I'd have to start doing in the distant future. The fact that it's almost here is both exciting and scary at the same time. It's time to either shit or get off the pot!

I've flirted with joining marathon training groups like Portland Fit and others. The two drawbacks to these groups are 1) the cost, and 2) the starting times. Most of these training groups head out at 8am from somewhere in Portland. Which means I'd had to wake up around 6:45am on a Saturday or Sunday to participate. That sucks. So I was really wishy washy and eventually I decided I'd just do training on my own. The longer runs on my own will probably suck, yes, but I'll just need to buckle down and get through them. There are also free "Coach Jim" runs that I can join at times if I feel I need company for a particular run.



My training plan.

A training plan is definitely something you need when training for a marathon, so I went ahead and whipped out my own. I drew inspiration from Hal Hidgon and other plans posted online but crafted this one to my specific needs. I probably shouldn't have labeled them as "fast/easy" since I will play those by ear depending on how I feel a certain day. My goal for a week though is two "fast" (tempo) runs, two "easy" runs, and one long run. I expect those paces to be around:

Fast: 8:00-8:20/mile
Easy: 8:30-9:00/mile
Long: 9:00-9:20/mile

Mondays and Wednesdays should be at my group run at Portland Running Company like I'm currently doing. Then all I am adding is a light run on the other weekend day and another 6-8 mile run on a weekday. If I feel I need more rest I can drop that Sunday run though... those 3-5 miles won't make or break things.

Anyways, that will officially start up in about a month. I might modify it to start those longer distance runs at a higher mileage since I am already very familiar with 10-13 mile runs. The faster I can make 14-18 routine, the less my marathon will suck hopefully.

My next post will be about my goals for the Corvallis Half Marathon coming up in just over a week!