Marathon Training Program: Weeks 1 - 3

I began my marathon training program on 28 December, 2009, 18 weeks from my scheduled race, The Gusher Marathon, in Beaumont, Texas, May 1, 2010.  I've been using Hal Higdon's Intermediate 1 marathon training program, and set it up on a Google calendar, embedded in this blog. (See the "Marathon Training Calendar" post from 9 December). 

The program consists of 5 running days per week.  The structure is: easy cross-training (no running) on Monday, a short run Tuesday, a medium-distance run Wednesday, and another short run Thursday.  Friday is a rest day to prepare for a medium-distance Saturday run, followed by a long Sunday run.  So the cycle is short-medium-short-rest-medium-long-easy.  That alternates the stresses up and down, and brackets the back-to-back medium and long with rest and easy.  The structure makes a lot of sense.  The mileage builds from an early weekly low of 22 miles to a weekly peak of 44 miles.  The weekly mileage increase follows a cycle, also.  In each three-week period, two consecutive weeks increase mileage, and the third week steps back a little to provide a little recovery before the next push upward.  Mileage tapers off in the last 3 weeks to allow recovery from the training.  The process will culminate with the marathon race at the end of the 18th week.

At the end of three weeks, my training has stayed on track.  I've had two weeks of increasing miles, and last week was the first stepback week.  Next week adds 7 miles.  So far, I've missed one 3-mile run on one occasion to give a sore knee an extra day of rest, but have also added an extra mile here and there when I was really feeling good.  So far, so good--  3 down, 15 to go!

In the future, I'll blog less about individual run details, and instead post more of a summary (like this post).  If you want to look at the plan, it's in the calendar in the footer below all of the posts on this page.  If you click on the title of a daily run, the full description of that day's plan will pop up.  A second click will minimize it.  I've recently started using dailymile.com to log workouts, so if you want to see individual workouts, click  the dailymile widget on my sidebar.

Registered for a First Marathon...

It's official;  I'm now registered for my first marathon race.  The race is The Gusher Marathon, Beaumont, Texas, on May 1, 2010. 
A smaller-city race like this should be a good first marathon for me.  It shouldn't be too crowded, and the course is pretty flat.  It's just a little late in the season; by May 1, it may be getting pretty warm.  However, May allows plenty of time to get ready.  I just need to stretch my long runs into the 20s and continue to build my base mileage.