Training. New Plan. It's On.

Alrighty. It's time. Focus is officially switching to full marathon training. Which, truthfully, has sort of gotten lost in all this Ragnar relay madness. In exactly 9 1/2 weeks (ha!), I'll be running my first 26.2 in Portland. And I'm behind. Officially, but not irretrievably.

Ragnar wasn't the only thing that threw me and my training off this month. I was averaging about 100 miles/month since March but only did 60 in July due to my pulled butt muscle. There was a couple weeks of self-imposed total rest and a lot of the runs were cut short. Which means that I have quite a bit of ground to make up. I've been back to somewhat normal this week so far. I've run three days in a row, just my short 3.5 mile loop and I'm feeling ok. Received the Stick I ordered this week and have been putting it to good use. Seems to be helping a bit. It's hard to tell if the ohmygodimgonnadie feeling is mostly coming from the injury or the fact that I am having to do some serious make-up fitness. Probably both.

I've revamped the training schedule yet again....it still feels a bit ambitious for how I'm feeling...but I'm going to slog through for the next couple of weeks and see how it goes, while I simultaneously go through the rig-a-marole for finding a PT and navigating through my insurance requirements. Fun times. I had lofty goals for this cycle. I was going to go all out and really up my weekly mileage...and not just for the weekend long runs. Pre-injury plan had me running a full 26 a few weeks before PDX and was fairly aggressive in the weekly increase. I've dialed it back a bit.....still planning on trying for a full 26 during training but it meant getting to that point in less time than anticipated.

And going from an average of 25 miles a week to peaking around 45 will be a challenge. But it's time. Over the course of this year, I've built up to a good weekly plan that keeps me in 'half shape'....which to me means that I could do a half tomorrow if I wanted to, without doing anything different to prepare. Training like that got me through a very fun series of half marathons this spring and my regular Ragnar Relay. But now it's time to raise the level of both the training and my game.

I've never run more than 13.1 miles before. Next weekend, I'm tackling 15 for the first time. And it only goes up from there.....It will be fun to come up with some new routes, and add on to some of my existing favorites to make them longer. Maybe when I get up to the high teens, low 20's, I can do a crazy loop incorporating my two favorite long run routes - the Seattle waterfront to the Magnolia Bridge and the Madison to Lake Washington loop.

Also, take a look at the plan for Ragnar in November! Totally makes me want to vomit. But I'm ready. It's time to work on the mental game, b/c this is about to get 'real'....