So I’m cheating a bit. That’s the first thing. What I’m doing here is writing my personal marathon training regimen, not laying this out as a model for getting started. (See my earlier posts on this subject.) Suffice to say that – unless you are Superman or Superwoman – a person cannot reasonably expect to finish without breakdown (physical and mental!) a marathon in 10 weeks by starting training as if this were Day One for a non-runner.
There are plenty of places to go, to find a program that works if you are someone who ran track, say, twenty-plus years ago and now wants to take up running for health reasons, or someone who has been light jogging or speed-walking on a twice-weekly basis as part of a glossy-magazine-accredited good health program. There’s no single formula, a how-to book that will work for everyone. (Although Joe Henderson’s “Marathon Training: The Proven 100-Day Program for Success” is a pretty good one.)
Rather, RFYL: Week One parachutes the reader into the training regime of one runner, a 54-year-old man, gearing up to compete in his fifth marathon. For the next five weeks, I will be posting thoughts, advice, running facts and personal memories of 34 years of road running, leading up to the Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, Pa., on Sunday, Oct. 10. My goal: to trim 2:48 from my Pittsburgh Marathon pace in May, or run a personal best 3:45 marathon, and in so doing qualify in my age class for the Boston Marathon next April.
For those keeping score, Week One is Aug 1 through 7, when I ran 2 hours and 30 minutes. In my case – and everyone is different – I train by keeping track of my hours on the road. Since my early 20s, I have been long-distance running at pretty much the same pace, at somewhere between 7:45 and 8 minutes per mile. (Remember, even now, my left leg swells uncomfortably during each and every run, so trying to maintain faster times is beyond me.) So in Week One, I ran about twenty miles.
I know what the books say, that between the ages of 25 and 30, your body stops laying down more bone.* But maybe there is something about starting running at an early age, in terms of being able to not only stay fit but strengthen your bones, which theoretically, could lead to even faster marathon times as you age, not to mention the invaluable added benefit of being able to maintain a training program without losing a lot of time to injury. As a serious runner since my early 20s, I have – knock on wood – been remarkably injury- and pain-free.
Consider this post a primer. Those 2.5 hours were pretty uneventful. I ran at home, in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. On my long run, a 1:30 effort on Wednesday, Aug. 4, a hot and humid day in which I did “two” interval vertical climbs, I had my encounter with the girl playing with the ladybug toy. The gently loved toy had fallen out of her hands, and into the middle of a desire path under an oak tree. Her mom was sitting beside her on the grass. Breaking stride, I stooped to pick it up and gave it to her. “Thank you, sir,” she said in a soft voice of gratitude.
Given this is Week One, let’s end this post with some Running for Your Life basics. Because when it comes to running, it’s as important to bank words of inspiration as it is to bank hill climbs and long runs:
1. Whether you are training or not, get out the door and speed-walk, jog or run. If not every day, every other day.
2. Why? Because the secret to Running for Your Life – if there is a secret – is that you want to get to a place in your life where you can reasonably train to start and finish a marathon. (This does not mean that you have to do it; but more that you feel that you could do it. It’s a mental thing. I’ve not always been in marathon running shape, rather I’ve maintained a level of fitness that in 100 days, say, I COULD be ready.)
3. So you want to run a marathon? Train. At the Pittsburgh Marathon in May, 7,620 runners started and 4,011 marathoners finished, or 53% of the total. We’re all citizens, but in any given election only about 53% vote. Be a voter.
4. “I can’t run today. It’s too hot (or cold or wet).” Get over it, get out there. Invest in and wear gear you need to stay as comfortable as possible.
5. Hot weather running: Drink A LOT of water; plan a run with frequent water stations, and on long runs, take and eat energy bars.
6. Push yourself. Trust your body, of course, and stop when it tells you to stop. But don’t be afraid to gradually increase the degree of difficulty. When you’re ready, add hills, or do staircases (inside and out).
7. Vary your regimen. We’ll talk about interval training a bit in Week Two. Simply said, don’t always run the same route at the same speed.
8. Be patient. The Rome Marathon wasn’t built in a day. The current Poets & Writers magazine tells it like it is: A successful writer needs to be more than a sprinter, which requires stamina, she needs to be a marathoner, with equal parts stamina and patience.
9. Pay attention to what works for you. The idea is not to blindly follow Henderson’s prescriptions, or mine, or what the columnists say in “Runner’s World.” Own your run, own your body.
10. Give yourself six months, of every day, or every other day running. You’ll recognize the changes in you. You will be Running for Your Life.
* “At this stage – and if you, or someone you know is this age, by all means run out and tell them! LOC – a weight-bearing sport like running (along with ingesting sufficient calories and calcium) will actually reduce the rate at which your bones weaken and the rate at which you lose bone mass,” The Runner’s Body by Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas.
Next: Running for Your Life: Week Two
