14 weeks to go

  Last year I was a huge failure at running. Every run I settled on, it would turn out my boys had a swim meet that weekend two or more hours in the other direction. The whole state of Montana seemed to be on fire and air quality for running was not good. We went on some fun trips, you know, life got in the way and that is totally fine. Our boys will only be young once and I refuse to put my hobby before them.

 This time around, I managed to find a run that gives the boys and me an excuse to go home to Washington to run a marathon, spend my oldest’s birthday there, and just hang out for a week. It will be awesome!

 So, once I picked out the run, I settled on following the Hanson’s Marathon Method after reading the book. I tried the Hal Higdon for the half two years ago and honestly I felt like crap. I had a horrible time of two and a half hours and just barely beat the walking group. It was miserable. I tried again with a marathon plan but didn’t get more than six weeks into the plan before my “long runs” felt like crap and I never managed to complete the runs without walking a good portion of the way.

 When I started reading about the Hanson Method it made a whole lot of sense and the runners on their Facebook page had me convinced I needed to give it a try.

 Honestly, three easy runs though out the week and then one long one on the weekend just didn’t make me feel any stronger or give me any better endurance. I still couldn’t run all the way through more than three miles without taking walk breaks and I couldn’t get over the thought that that was just ridiculous! All of these marathoners were talking about running the whole race with no walk breaks and I can’t even get past three?? I just wanted to be better, not necessarily killing it time wise and placing in my age group or anything crazy like that after all I am not insane, but just a better runner than what I was.

 The weather has been ridiculous, like negative 25 ridiculousness, and with the boys at swim meet practice at our gym five nights a week for two hours, the treadmill really is the only way for me to run right now. For me, it’s harder to run on the treadmill than outside. It’s too easy to just stop and walk, or slow down, when I am outside and running alone. With the treadmill I have to actually stick with a speed and peer pressure from runners around me keep me from walking all the time. I can adjust the incline and out here on the Plains it is difficult to find hills unless. My typical running routes are pancake flat. Hence, my treadmill life. On the plus side, I am reading that treadmilll running results in fewer injuries, so there’s that, oh, and I have been catching up with all the last Ginger Runner live videos on YouTube. Big plus there.

 Once the snow melts I will try and get more outside runs in, so maybe June, July, after the marathon!