I joined the North Myrtle Beach Running group around January 15, 2009. Five months later, somehow I found myself making a committment to my sister to run the Steamtown Marathon in October. That would give me 4 months to train. I started to look through some of my times from a 5K to a half marathon and noticed that my times weren’t half bad. Until I joined the running group, I really didn’t know what “qualifying for Boston” meant. Even though I ran cross country, I didn’t really keep track of splits and when asked what my best time was in college, I could barely remember. A little strange, I know, but I joined XC in college simply to be part of a team again.
With all of that said, I made the decision with my sister to try to qualify for Boston during my first marathon. It could be a stretch, but it was a goal to work towards rather than simply trying to finish which, don’t get me wrong is an amazing feat all in itself, I just knew I could do a little more. Many of the people in the running group tried to tell me it wasn’t a great idea to set such a high expectation but I really knew what I was capable of. And so the weekend after July 4th, I embarked on my marathon training journey. Long runs on Saturdays, speed work on Thursdays and many 4-8 mile runs in between.
For those that are thinking of training for a 3:40 time, this is the schedule that I followed. I kept all of my long runs below a 9min pace and most of my shorter runs were 8:30 or better. I think the best thing that I did was the Yasso 800s on Thursdays. Every Thursday morning I’d do a 1/2 mile – 1mile warm up and then I built myself up each week by doing 3 x 800s at 3:30 or less each and built it up to 8 x 800s. You’re supposed to peak at 10 and do 2-3 weeks at 10 then work your way back down, but I think that may require a longer training period.
All in all, I stayed injury-free throughout my training and following this schedule made me a very strong runner. I had done all I could to properly prepare myself for my first 26.2 consecutive miles and stuck to my guns all summer. I found that a feat that I had thought just six months earlier was absolutely insane was actually achievable for an average (slightly lazy) 23-year-old like me, and I’m a better person overall for it. If I can stick to this kind of training, who knows what other long-term goals I’m capable of accomplishing!
Here’s my schedule…
