Utah Valley Marathon Part 2--Training

Marathon Training started at the beginning of February. Thankfully I don't mind running in cold weather and we for sure had some cold, snowy, sleety, wet days, but all in all it wasn't too bad.

We followed the training program from the book "The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer" and even thought the schedule called for running 4 days a week for 16 weeks, we reduced it to 3 days for 16 weeks, with our long runs being on Saturday. Both Lindsay and I were so excited to start training and before I knew it our long runs went from 5 miles to 10 miles to 16 miles to 18 miles! It seemed to go so fast and each and every Saturday was so fun and challenging. Keep in mind that I only really want to write about the long Saturday runs, even though there were 2 other runs each week, because I feel like each Saturday was a milestone!

Up until this point the farthest I had run was 8.5 miles so I was very excited to get to the point in my training where I was running farther then that! That point came in the 5th week of training when the schedule called for 10 miles. Unfortunately Lindsay wasn't able to run with me that day due to an injury so I was off on my own! It was sooooooooo incredibly hard but sooooooooo incredibly satisfying! I remember really struggling from about mile 5 to mile 7 and then again between mile 9 and 10 and when I talked to Lindsay after my run the first thing out of my mouth was 'I don't know how I'll EVER be able to run 16 more!'

The week after the 10 mile was an 11 mile run which seemed to go well. And then a few days later we did a 12 miler which was by far the most difficult run for me. I struggled through most of it while Lindsay rocked it! The next week was 14, which I ended up missing due to being out of town for spring break so I was really nervous for the week after that...our first 16 miler!

For those who run you know its important to map out your route. For whatever reason I had mapped out our 16 mile route at like week 2 so I was really looking forward to it, and it was so fun! I started to struggle at about mile 10 and had to fight hard between 10 and 13. It was at 13.1 that Lindsay, who was ahead of me, stopped and said, 'You just ran a half marathon.' Then we took a few pictures, walked a little bit more and then ran the last 2 miles without stopping. I really couldn't believe I had run 16 miles! It was crazy!

The next Saturday was another 16, which we ran part of in frozen snow, and then the next week was another 16, which I only ended up running about 13 of. I was in Hawaii and I just got bored and hot so I stopped! Then came our first 18 which was AWESOME!!!!! We both felt so amazing, and even though I had a KILLER blister, I powered through and we finished in record time! The week after that, week 13 was another 18, which I don't want to discuss in too much detail...let's just say we called for a rescue party at mile 15! Then we started to taper.

The taper weeks were by far the hardest for me mentally. I think I thought since the longest run of the week was only 9 miles it would be easy. I was wrong. It was at this point that I really started to worry about actually being able to run the full 26.2! Lindsay was also getting concerned at this point but we both just tried to remember that we were prepared, we were strong, we were trained and we would finish!

Finally, after 16 weeks of running, 301 miles of running, talking about running, planning our running, talking more about running, running more, talking about running and planning more running, Marathon week arrived!

This sign advertising the marathon happened to be on our 16 mile course so of course we had to take a picture during our first 16 mile run.

There I am, being a fool of course!

My NASTY blister after the first 18 mile run. This thing caused me trouble the rest of the training but was okay during the marathon. It still hasn't fully healed though!