Here we are at the end of my first week of marathon training. It has not gone as smoothly as I would have hoped, but things generally improved as the week went on.
Mondays are my "active rest" days, comprising yoga and strength training exercises, so my first actual run of the program was on Tuesday. Unfortunately, thanks to insomnia and a trouble-making puppy, I only got about 2-3 hours of sleep the night before. While a smarter person would have texted her coach about the near-sleepless night and discussed making some adjustments to the week's plan, I decided that it was just a short 3 mile run and if I was going to do this marathon thing I needed to be tough and power through it.
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| This is the puppy asleep during the day, no doubt dreaming about how she'll wake me up in the middle of the night. |
The run went about as well as you'd expect. Not only did I feel like I was doing the Zombie Shuffle every single step, but my left leg (the one that I had injured last May) was hurting. I blinked back tears of self-pity the whole way, ashamed at how poorly I was running and certain that I was now entirely doomed to fail at this goal.
When I finally finished the 3 miles, I immediately typed a rambling, barely coherent text to my husband about how awful I felt and obviously my next step was to quit every commitment in my life and hide in a cave with the dog. (Our older dog, not the puppy, obviously.) "You had a bad run after a terrible night of sleep," he replied. "Top option is to get some sleep. You need to rest."
Fortunately he was right. I did get some sleep, I did not end up quitting everything in my life and hiding in a cave, and my next runs went much better. (And my coach encouraged me to let her know in the future so we can accommodate situations like this.) Unfortunately, though, my leg discomfort did follow me for the rest of the week without abating. I saw my physical therapist on Friday, who diagnosed me with tendonitis and tightness/knots in my calves and hamstring. He gave me additional stretches and exercises and approved me to continue running as long as I was not in too much pain.
Meanwhile, now that I have hit the "official" stage of training, the pressure has kicked my mental game into gear. I have actually started reading the running books that have been piling up untouched next to my bed. I have been working my way through the podcasts I downloaded weeks ago on first-time marathoners and related topics. I consulted Olympic runner Shalane Flanagan's cookbook and bought some additional ingredients at the grocery store yesterday to help improve my nutrition and energy in the coming weeks. I am still terrified, but it feels like just the right level of terrified to keep me focused on taking care of myself properly.
One week down, nineteen more to go.
Total mileage for Week 1: 16 miles
Days until marathon: 132 days
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