Where Do I Go From Here? Sneak Peak at Marathon Training Schedule

Today, Bella and I had a wonderful Sunday morning run along the canal! We ran 2.5 miles, and it was great. If you look at my mileage on RunningAHEAD, you'll see that it reflects more than 2.5 miles. Remember, that's from my warm-up and cool-down walking too. I'm still not sure if I should be using the Garmin to record the warm-up and cool-down. I mentioned before that I was turning and leaving it on for these parts because I wanted an accurate count on the total distance I've moved my body, but I don't like that this time is figured into my average pace.

Today, I took the time to look up on the official PF Chang's Rock and Roll Marathon website, what the time limit for the marathon is. 7 hours and 15 minutes. That's 435 minutes in which to run 26.2 miles. That averages out to 16.6 minutes/mile in order to finish the marathon before they take down the finish line and my finish is no longer "official."

As I've discussed previously, my pace has been falling somewhere between 15-22 min/mile depending on whether I'm JUST starting my run for the day and how energetic and motivated I feel. It seems like, so far, when I'm feeling pretty good, my average pace is about 17.5 min/mile (but that's including the warm-up and cool-down walking that I discussed above).

I CAN tell that my running pace is naturally increasing slightly. I just really hope that it naturally increases enough over the next 5 months so that I don't have to focus too much on speed and pace and that I can just run my own natural pace during the marathon without having to worry that I'm not going to "officially" finish.

These next four weeks are kind of "in limbo" weeks. I think that I will just continue to increase my distance slowly so that by September 28th (the first day of the "official" marathon training schedule), I feel as confident and ready as possible for what's to come.

Here's the "official" marathon training program I'll be using out of Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer (sorry it's a little crooked):

I know that for the final "in limbo" week, I want to do a trial run of the first week of official training. As you can see, that week will include 4 days of running at distances of 3 miles, 4 miles, 3 miles and 5 miles. The reason I want to do that is because coincidentally, the first week of official training, I will be out of town. I'll still be able to run while I am away, but I don't want to be trying out my first week of official mileage someplace unfamiliar. That's probably silly but really I've got nothing to lose by doing it that way since I've got some weeks to play with.

So, I figure in the next three weeks I want to work up to a longest run of 4 miles and just keep my daily mileage at 2-2.5 miles. I want to make the transition from thinking about the "time" that I run every morning to the "mileage" I run every morning. Honestly, I think that in and of itself will help me pick up my pace because I'll know that the sooner I pound out the mileage, the sooner I can get home and relax for a bit longer before work. We shall see . . .