Do I feel ready to crush my PR? Honestly, I don't know. My last marathon was almost a year and a half ago and that race and this one weren't spread that far apart on purpose. After dealing with almost back-to-back injuries in 2012, I'm mostly just scared to jinx myself, despite how strong I've felt after many of my speed workouts and tempo runs. I can say, however, that I feel ready to run a strong, consistent race on June 1.
Some things I've done differently this training cycle:
Running five days a week
I've experimented between running five days and six days a week in marathon training cycles. When I tried doing six, I ended up flat-out bonking in one marathon and then injured and eventually missing two of my next ones. I've been running five days a week even in the off-season since my freshman year of college, so for now I'm sticking with what's worked.
60 minutes of yoga once a week
I can't say with certainty that this has helped my running itself, but I almost always did this the day after long runs and found that I haven't felt that sore at all, not even after last week's 22-miler. I started out the year doing weekly hot yoga at a local studio with a Groupon deal, and when that ended, I bought a Gaiam DVD at Target. I must say, I prefer doing solo yoga at home — no dealing with getting myself there early enough to get a parking spot or enough floor space to fully stretch out.
Weight lifting and core work once a week
Just before I started this cycle, I upgraded my 5-pound dumbbells to 8-pounders and have religiously used them ever since. It's been hard (I know, I'm a pathetic weakling) and I can't really tell if I've gained any muscle definition. But the real reason I decided to work on this was because I noticed in my last marathon's photos that I looked hunched over in the later miles, likely because my upper body was fatigued. After about two months of regular weight-lifting, I noticed that my form and posture looked significantly better in my Country Music Half photos, which definitely won't hurt on Marathon Day.
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Hydrating early and often on the run
I've carried a water bottle on every long run this cycle, so that's what I'm going to do in Newport. (Shout-outs to the Shell station near Memorial Park and the Whole Foods in River Oaks for always providing free ice water to sweaty runners.) I've also hydrated exclusively with lemon-lime Nuun just in case I find myself without it on Race Day and am forced to drink the same flavor of syrupy Gatorade.
Speedwork and tempos
I rarely really did any speedwork while training for my first three marathons. It's kind of a miracle I PR'd and went sub-4 in my third one after a terrible second. Many thanks to Coach Celia for keeping the workouts interesting and understanding that Texas heat is killer when I sometimes didn't quite hit the paces.
Not overdoing it with races in the middle of training
I only ran four races during this training cycle and, surprise, I didn't PR in any of them. But I did have strong performances in most of them and I'm a newfound believer that (a minimal amount of) races should serve as training runs in a marathon training cycle. Now if only I can PR in the marathon next month to make it all worth it...
Anyway, that's all for now. Rather than talk up a big game, I'm going to say that the goal for June 1 is still sub-3:50 and I hope to get there by running a smart race and avoiding hitting the wall. I leave for Oregon a week from Thursday and I hope to post an update between now and Race Day. But if not, I'll see you on the flip side of my fourth 26.2.
