Hal Higdon's Training Program

Today's run was exactly what I needed after such a bad run on Thursday evening. Friday's are rest days according to the training plan that I am using so I was really ready to run this morning after a day off. I am using Hal Higdon's Novice Supreme 30 Week Marathon Training Schedule. If you are a serious runner, then I highly recommend checking out some of Hal Higdon's training plans. I used a combination of the Novice 1 and Novice 2 Half Marathon Training Schedules for the 3 half marathons that I ran this past spring. He has training plans for 5K's, 10K's, 15K's, half marathons, marathons and so much more. Each specific distance also has training plans for everything from beginner runners to advanced runners who want to increase their speed. The training plan that I am using combines a 12 Week Spring Training Schedule and an 18 Week Novice Marathon Training Schedule. I chose the novice supreme instead of a novice because most of his training plans for longer distances recommend that you have already been running for quite a few weeks. It's much easier to follow a training plan than to decide how much I should be running before I get into the real marathon training. I really like the novice supreme because it gently eases you into the harder parts of the training. The novice supreme has Monday's and Friday's as rest days. Tuesday's, Wednesday's and Thursday's are shorter runs between 3-5 miles and those runs get a little longer as it gets closer to the actual marathon. Saturday is my long run day and Sunday is cross training, which will probably just be a recovery run/jog most weeks. I tweaked the novice supreme schedule a little bit because the mileage was extremely light for the first few weeks and it ranged from 1.5-3 miles most days. I did quite a bit of running during the fall months so I am a little ahead of where this training begins.

I anticipated running 4 or 5 miles this morning and planned to meet Sandy at the rail trail at 9am. If you know me well, then you know that I have an extremely difficult time hearing my alarm in the morning no matter how early or late it is. So it comes as no surprise that I never heard Sandy's 8:30am text or the 5 alarms that I set to begin going off at 8am. I rolled out of bed at 8:45am, texted Sandy to let her know that I wasn't blowing her off, threw on my running clothes and grabbed a banana as I flew out the door. The winter temperatures have arrived so I had to dig out the under armour, spandex, headband and gloves today. I even threw on my "I'm training for the 2009 Buffalo Marathon" t-shirt over my under armour this morning. I actually enjoy running on cold days much more than warm days so I did not mind the 35 degree temperature this morning. We all know that I still will be drenched in sweat after running just 1/4 mile. I sweat way more than most people that I know when I workout, but at least people can tell I got a good workout in. You are not always the most attractive person after you finish a run, but I think that it makes you look a whole lot better than all of the lazy bums sitting at home on their couches. I am so glad that I was not one of those lazy bums today because this morning's run was really great. After Thursday, I decided that I would not focus on speed for my next few runs. I needed to get back in the right mindset before I began to pick up the speed again. I still turned on my MapMyRun app on my phone this morning, but I turned off the splits and the voice feedback. We both felt pretty good when we got to 4 miles so we decided that we would run 5 miles this morning. I thought for sure that we were running an 11:00 pace today, but much to my surprise we finished with a 10:44 pace. We ran 5 miles in 53:39, which I was very happy with because that is probably what my marathon pace will be. Needless to say, I left today's run feeling much happier and motivated again. It's not always going to be easy, but I am really beginning to believe that this is something that I will be able to accomplish.

20 miles complete in 2:58:01 and only 203 days until conquering 26.2 miles!