After nearly three years without a full marathon, I'm back.
Those three years were spent doing shorter-distance training a couple of half-marathons here and there, and some 5Ks. Twice I was registered for a Full, and had to drop prior to the races due to injury.
But most importantly, those two years were spent attempting to understand my thyroid condition, Hashimoto's Disease, and achieve the proper dosage of medication.
For anyone else who struggles with this condition or any other metabolic disease, frustrating doesn't even begin to describe it. One day your body feels entirely "normal" and the next you don't recognize yourself. It's a process, and if you are going through it, just know that it does indeed take time. You WILL return to feeling like your normal self.
My family recently relocated to northern Massachusetts, and I couldn't have been more excited to begin a new running life: cooler weather (if not extremely cold in the winter), more trail running possibilities, and hills. I was registered to run the Space Coast Marathon in December, back in Florida. After a couple of months of running the roads of Ashburnham, I was developing greater fitness, but also some knee problems. Those problems hit a breaking point when I ran the B.A.A Half Marathon in October and caused a severe strain on my right knee that required about 6 weeks of rest to fully heal. During that time, I did some light stationary biking and as much strength training as I could without doing further damage to the knee.
The Bodybuilding.com app helped with this greatly. I had not previously been as consistent in strength training as I should have been, and this was a great boost to my overall body strength and resiliency. I was not going to allow weaknesses in my form or frame to allow me to be injured again. Eventually, I was able to start running again. Only two days per week on the treadmill at first, and then worked back to Sunday long runs (outside, weather permitting).
I decided I wanted to refocus my sights on another marathon. A local one, if possible. After some research, I chose the Shipyard Marathon in Maine, slated for the first weekend of May. I had already been planning on running the Half, but with my strength returning, I decided to aim for the Full. Worst case, I drop down to the Half. Given the successes I had with my strength and crosstraining routine of late, I researched a marathon method that would be geared towards injury prevention.
Behold Furman University's F.I.R.S.T marathon training program.
Here are the details of the program
This plan is rather radical for marathoners, as it posits only 3 days per week of running and the other days spent crosstraining. As a marathoner who is firmly ingrained into the 'more mileage equals faster' mentality, this is still a challenging concept for me to wrap my head around.
But make no mistake, 3 days of running is NOT easy. Those three days are all intense, quality workouts: one speed repeats, one tempo, one long run (at a sustained, slightly elevated pace). And the success of the program also depends strongly on consistent crosstraining on the other days. I have chosen to stick with the stationary bike for this purpose, and the types of acceptable workouts are 30-45 min of intervals. Essentially, you don't lose cardio fitness. You simply swap the easy runs you would be doing in a more traditional program with non-impact biking, swimming, elliptical or other.
Reviews for this program were somewhat mixed, but by consulting fellow Oiselle Volee runners, I got a much more positive picture from others like myself: working moms about my age who struggle with the same challenges, at all levels and abilities. This system kept them injury-free, and some commented that the program's emphasis on speed work resulted in tremendous gains.
In the month prior to starting the program, I started to get myself into the routine, by doing three runs per week, with the same emphases: speed, tempo, long. I started off gently adding in the speed, and running by feel more than time. By the end of the month, I was already regaining some comfort with those paces.
As for strength training, I have decided to shift from the Bodybuilding.com plans to a more running-specific routine. As much as I loved developing a "total athlete" body from BB, they are not always well suited to the needs of marathon runners. So for this, I am going to use a strength training plan that I have had great success with in the past from Runner's Connect:
Here are the details on Runner's Connect: Strength Training for Runners Programs
So here I stand at the beginning of the training program and have decided to blog my progress weekly. This is more for my own benefit than anything, but if it proves in any way helpful to you, reader, then that brings me happiness as well.
Wish me luck!!
