I've been thinking lately about the complexity of marathon training. This has been on my mind mostly because the last two years I have trained toward doing a marathon but have, for various reasons, chosen not to follow through to the goal. There are so many factors that are involved that only those who have trained for a marathon can understand. When I think back to the marathon that I ran in 2012 and all of the training that led up to it, I'm kind of amazed at how many things fell into place. Of course, it helped that it was my first marathon and I had only started running regularly 4 months prior, Because of this, my goal throughout training was merely to finish. Still, the fact that I completed the 18 week training plan (that's roughly 72 run days) and only missed one training day still boggles my mind. Throughout this training, I was able to get up early every morning (we're talking 5am on work days) AND Saturdays and complete the runs while steadily improving my pace. Looking back, I'm not sure how I achieved this, especially since that same summer, I spent many of my run day evenings painting the entire exterior of my house in the summer heat. The more I think about it, the more training for a marathon makes me think of a shuttle launching. There's just so many things that have to go right to make everything "a go."
I wanted to list some of the many factors that play into whether or not the training is successful:
- The intensity - training to finish is much different than training to finish at a certain pace. Shooting for a certain pace, elevates the intensity of the training to a much higher level.
- Allergies - Yup, those of us that suffer from seasonal allergies are somewhat at the mercy of the elements in the air. The good news is that running greatly reduces these allergy symptoms (at least for me). The bad news is that when allergies are especially bad, it's extremely difficult to get up early in the morning to run (see next factor) or to even make one's self get out the door at all.
- Time of day - I'm an evening runner at heart. I simply love running in the evenings. That being said, I believe that mornings are the best time to run if you're doing a marathon training plan. It's cooler and it relaxes you for the rest of the day so that you don't have "the run" hanging over you. There are a number of other reasons why I feel like mornings are the best time to run but I'll save that for another post.
- The temperature - This one is HUGE. Small changes in temperature cause BIG changes in stress on the body. You're pretty much at the mercy of nature on this one. The only control you have is what time of the day you run and life confronts you with many things that make it difficult to keep a schedule. Again, this is why mornings are better because this is the coolest time of the day; Unfortunately, during the summer months, even the morning can be horribly humid. Higher temps require adjusting your pace accordingly and this is difficult because it challenges you psychologically to be "Ok" with slower paces.
- Phsyical setbacks - With the increase in intensity of setting a goal for a specific pace, stress to joints, muscles and bones also increases. There WILL BE aches and pains. Especially if you are a bit older (as I am). There is a need to constantly evaluate the aches and pains to determine if they are just minor pains that are part of the training or if they are symptomatic of issues that could become worse if you continue with training. These physical setbacks are difficult to interpret and can be caused by many different factors.
- Emotional and Mental Issues- Although running is an excellent activity to help with emotional and mental struggles, there are times that a person has so much other stuff going on in life that it's just too overwhelming to keep to the fairly rigid and consistent training schedule that is a must for a marathon. When these times come along, a tough decision has to be made and many times, a runner just has to concede that cutting back to a less rigid schedule is what must be done.
- Time Commitment- The time commitment of training for a marathon is HUGE. Even if you're training to run the marathon at a fairly fast pace, the training for longer runs is to run them slower than you intend to run the marathon. This is done in order to build up endurance. This means, hours of running. Unless you always get up to run in the morning, early enough so that you're finished by the time that everyone else is up and about, you end up missing out on time with friends and family. Also, even if you do get up early, that means that you typically go to bed earlier, producing the same result.
So, there you have just some of the factors that successful marathon training depends on. I'm sure that there are others. Those that I mentioned above have all played some factor in my decision to stop training for a marathon this fall and so I've shared them.
Currently, I've resumed running every other day or so, or when I feel like I need to and have run shorter distances. My primary reason for running is mental health and meditation, so that's my priority.
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