TRAINING DAY [ONE]
- By loramarie03
- 30 January, 2012
- 7 Comments
Today is my official first day of training for the Boston Marathon! Wooo! With only 11 more Mondays until the official race day, I think it’s going to come quick! I started the training plan off with a recovery five miler. I am surprised that my legs felt a little sore yesterday after Saturday’s running adventures. They were a little sluggish today, so a recovery five miles was exactly what I needed.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I feel like I have a good level of fitness, especially coming off the Houston Marathon and before that the Chicago Marathon. I want to focus on improving my eating (hence the salad experiment) and also focus on some non-running training elements of my plan. Here are a few goals for this training season:
- Focus on food. Oh, it’s so hard to do when you live in New York City! There are so many great restaurants around. I feel like we don’t eat out as much as the average New Yorker. We tend to eat out twice a week, maybe three times if there is something special going on. I want to make a conscious effort — whether I’m eating at home or eating out — to eat better. I already feel like I eat pretty healthy, but there are some things I can improve upon. Such as my addiction to Mountain Dew…
- Hills and speed. Training for Houston, I didn’t focus on either of these. I don’t think my time suffered because of it, but I think with Boston (especially with its reputation for hills!), I want to be ready to conquer the course with strong training accented by hills and speed. I am customizing my training plan this time around, and I think I will focus on speed workouts on Tuesdays and hill workouts on Thursdays. As for speed, I really don’t have easy access to a track so I’m going to get a little creative with that.
- Abs! I was complaining last week about my ab workouts not doing enough for me. I am stepping up my game! My February monthly challenge will have something to do with my ab workouts, and I’m excited to see if I focus on these a little bit more, if it will improve my running.
- Arms! Any runner knows that arms are quite possibly the weakest part of their body. I feel like I definitely suffer from T-Rex syndrome and want to make sure this isn’t impacting my performance. Plus, working on toning my arms will only work out to my advantage when I put on my wedding dress!
Oh, and P.S., did you see Shaun White perform last night at the X-Games? He got a perfect 100 on his last run! Unbelievable and so incredible.
Do you incorporate a recovery run in your training plan? What are some areas where you could improve upon in your training?
Copyright © 2013
You definitely want to do some hill training for Boston. The hills are not huge, but there are enough of them that you need to train for them. Just remember that Heartbreak is the last of four, but the crowd support will get you up that hill if you let them. So excited for you!
Thanks! When I ran it in 2010, I trained in FL… and my only hill was a bridge! I definitely felt the hills for a few weeks.
It's pretty flat here as well, and the hills I trained on were much shorter than in Boston. I ran in 2010 as well. Hope you have the same great weather this year!
That would be amazing! I'm worried there will be a huge snowstorm days before…
I'm excited to see what you do for abs. That's something I need to work on too.
Shaun White is amazing!!
Ah I agree!!! He makes snowboarding look so easy.
[...] just because I haven’t talked about T-Rex syndrome for a few days, here you [...]