I hear you snickering - everybody who’s read my “Wow, I sucked ass at my 5K” and my “Crap, I have to drop out of that half marathon because I can’t breathe without coughing” and my “Good lord, running sucks” threads. (Even my boyfriend admitted under questioning that he was, er, unsure as to whether or not he should be making plans to go to Washington in October.)
But I did it, and I’m really committed. I’m not coughing anymore, although I haven’t run in a month. (!) Today registration opened up for the Marine Corps Marathon in October and I am going to do it, come hell or high water. I’m doing Hal Higdon’s Novice Supreme plan, which is his Spring Training plan stuck onto his Novice Marathon Plan, and I have almost exactly the thirty weeks I need. (If I had started working hard on Monday it would be exact, but whatever.) It looks pretty much exactly like what I need for my level.
I wouldn’t be worried except for the whole speed thing - you have to beat the bridge in the MCM, so you essentially have to be running a 14 minute pace. I’m the world’s pokiest runner, and my normal “doing good” pace is around 14:30, which will not cut it. I was hoping the dog we just got would help me run a bit faster, but he’s… not run-ready yet as far as the leash thing goes. So he won’t be much help yet. I’m sure speed will improve at some point in 30 weeks, right?
I know it sounds kind of nutso to say I’m going to run a marathon just a few weeks shy of a year after I started with Couch to 5K, but I’m afraid that if I don’t have a very specific goal, that I’ve already paid to enter, that’s sufficiently big to be inspirational, I’ll just quit running. I mean, running is hard, and I’m not at all good at waking up early - I need something pushing me. Telling everybody I’m running this damned marathon will presumably help. (The half training really got me pushing myself harder than I had before, and finding out I had it in me. Then I got the horrible racking cough and that was that.)
Good for you. I’ve done something similar. I signed up for a five mile swim this July. I need to get back to swimming and having a goal is the best way to do it. Maybe we should have a dopefest for people running the Marine Corp, if there are any others. My wife wanted to try, but doesn’t think she’ll have the time to train so she’s signing up for a half.
Good luck, Zsofia. Sounds like you have a good plan and are pretty determined to get through this. I know you’ve talked about wanting to do a marathon in the past, so it is good to hear you still have those plans.
You can get through this and your time will improve. Try not to look too far ahead, but instead focus on the goals for that week. And during those long, tiring, “how am I ever going to finish this” runs, just imagine how good it will feel to cross that finish line and know you did it and to be able to say, “I ran a marathon.”
Good luck!! I remember you from the other running threads.
I am hoping to do a 5k then a 10k within the next year. I ran 4 miles today on the treadmill at an 11 minute pace-so I do think the 5k is doable and was happy about that, but a marathon scares the crap out of me. Hell 10k scares the crap out of me–a marathon would make me whimper. But you are a LOT younger then me and I am sure you will do fine!
A year after starting up a couch to 5K? You should be fine. I think the biggest benefit of the couch to 5K programs, as a stepping stone to longer distances - is the determination of whether your body is able to even think about taking the pounding it’ll take during the longer distance runs.
This year I signed up for my first marathon as well! Last year I did a half marathon, following a training plan from coolrunning.com. This year I’m following Jeff Galloway’s marathon training program, which is appealing to me (and possibly others as well) for multiple reasons:
the real heavy-lifting, so to speak, is done on the weekends where there is more time
Structured around running 3x a week, which allows plenty of time to rest, but is often enough to see benefits
it is actually lower mileage than many other training programs, so less chance of knee issues, etc.
Whether you decide to give that plan a look or not - good luck!
