My First Marathon (x2)

Sooner or later, as a runner, you are likely to ask yourself "Do I need a coach?" If you're like me there are about 100 other questions that follow: I've never had a coach, what's that like? What does it cost? Do coaches even work with people like me (whatever that means for you)? and dozens more... So let's pick this apart with a bit of research... 1. Coach vs training plan A training plan is a schedule of workouts that will get you to a specific distance race. Some are very generic for 5K, 10K, half marathon, or marathon and don't really account for where you are starting from. Others may differentiate between level of experience, include some level of specificity for the workouts (quality vs easy vs tempo vs long), or vary between the number of days of running per week (from 3 to 7). Some will be geared for a Saturday goal race and some Sunday. Some have long runs on Saturday, some on Sunday.  Some use minutes and some use miles. Some a...

How much of your race would you say is mental? How much time to you spend training? How much time do you spend training your mind? Mic drop. So about three weeks ago I started the intentional work of mental training. When the sports psychologist asked the first two questions I had answers...and then I had nothing...I could try to quantify how much time I spent mentally beating myself up...but in terms of working on the mental part of the sport...I got nothing. And by working on the mental part of the sport I don't mean meme turds (read The Brave Athlete: Calm the Fuck Down)... So I am doing that - and continuing the physical training. First week post race is recovery. I tried harder to be better at recovery this time. Then came the switch to marathon training.  Running on Monday and having a second quality run on Thursday were sure signs that tri season is over and it's time to get serious about Chicago. Monday I ran before work...I won't call it "...

I have been MIA for longer than usual this time...to be honest I just wasn't feeling great about a lot of things after the 100 mile tri and I needed to get out of my own head and out of my own way. After the recovery week I had a solid week of training and did some things as I normally do and some a little different. I had a progression run at the group run, but it was different than the group workout and I was fine. I went for a group ride with Endurance House. I had my first flat in a really long time and that was embarrassing and frustrating. I did a morning solo brick. Ran a super humid 12 that I wasn't super proud of, but got it done. Rode 40 with lots of hills at Eagle Creek, including a little thunderstorm. The second week I swam and lifted on Monday. Tuesday I went to the group run for the hill circuit and I had a panic attack on the warm up...that I totally didn't belong running with this group and I should stop pretending to be an athlete. I pulled it back tog...