The Marathon Training Blog

This Week's Running Schedule:

After researching and comparing many marathon training plans, I decided the least confusing, most flexible, and most compatible with my schedule, was one of the New York City Marathon's official training schedules. I’ve been following the First-Time Marathoner Plan, (or as they also call it, the “bare minimum schedule”). It builds from a 15-mile-per-week base and lasts 18 weeks.

Though I’d been running regularly, I was definitely not running 15 miles a week every week. And while I set out with the intention of running 15 miles a week, something always got in the way -- drinks with friends, working late, or the call of my sofa and “Lost” reruns, each of which was so much more appealing than hitting the treadmill day after day after day. Of course, the tradeoff was that the less I ran, the more difficult each run was. So, for weeks, nothing was getting easier and I saw no progress.

But once the official training started, I was able to keep up. Though lately I seem to have hit a wall. And I wonder if my less-than-dedicated start is the reason why I’m lagging. I can usually bang out my short runs of 4 to 5 miles with no problem, it’s the long runs that do me in. Am I not fit enough? Or just bored?

Of course, I also have to wonder if this “bare-minimum” plan is a bit too intense. From this week on, I'm supposed to run 5 days a week. I mean, who has time and energy for that?And furthermore, with the race still 14 weeks away, I was already supposed to have logged a13-mile long run. So far, my longest run has been 9 miles. And last week, after suffering a nagging pain in my hip, which I self-diagnosed as an IT band strain, I decided to take it easy. So I ran only twice last week. And the scheduled 13-miler was actually only 6. And I barely eeked that out. I'm so not impressed with myself. So far, I'm on track for this week, meaning I did the one run that was scheduled so far. But I'm tired, my hip hurts, and if I run one more loop around Central Park I might scream!!

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