Bearing Hansen's

I dedicated myself to the Hansen's Marathon Method for the Colfax Marathon in May.  Many people see this as a very strange approach to training, but most are curious how this method effects my body.  To begin, Hansen's is very different than Hal Higdon.  Simply put, I run more than I ever have, and I feel it!  My previous training plan required 3-4 days a week, with one long run on the weekend.  Higdon slowly built up the mileage on the weekends adding, one mile each week, until the 20 mile run, after which you taper and race.

On the other hand, Hansen's requires a much larger commitment.  I currently run 6 days a week, with Wednesdays off.  Being in the early phase of the program, I average between 35-42 miles a week.  There is no long run.  Instead, you spread those miles out over 6 days, changing speeds each day to work different muscle groups in the body.  In the height of the training program, I will reach 60 miles a week, with a 16 mile run on the weekends.  After the race, I will have run 1,024 miles in about 5 months.  The goal is to run tired.  Not to the point of injury, but just enough to feel fatigued at the beginning of each run.  They want you to feel like it is the last 16 miles of the race, not the first.

I started the schedule a month ahead of time in order to slowly increase my weekly distance from 20 miles per week up to 40.  I didn't want to risk injury once the real work began.  Therefore, I've run 6 days a week for 13 weeks and here's what I've noticed so far:

1. Doubling my weekly mileage with only one rest day was painful.  I found my joints and muscles were extremely fatigued just walking up the stairs after a run.  However, that discomfort never turned into injury and never stopped me from running the next day.
2. About 3-4 weeks ago, most of that discomfort disappeared.  I am no longer sore after a really hilly and fast 8-10 mile run.  In fact, I feel stronger the next day.
3. Food tastes better!  Each week I run off at least 3,680 calories.  At first I felt starved.  Honestly, I think my body was in shock.  But now that I've adjusted to the new schedule, I'm not that hungry.  Food, just tastes really freaking good!  
4. What I eat directly effects the next day's performance.  I've always known this, but I pay the price on a larger scale when I detour.   
5. Cumulative exhaustion (not resting entirely between each running day), is no joke.  I feel it throughout my body and often I start a 6 mile run feeling like I already ran 3-4 miles.  
6. I slept like a fitful baby with colic for over a month.  Every night I went to bed completely exhausted.  I'd fall asleep around 9:30pm and wake around 12:00am.  I'd wake every hour to half hour for the rest of the night, tossing and turning.  Within the last few weeks, I started sleeping normally again.  I no longer wake with aches and pains, a racing mind, or crazy hot muscles. 
7. I'm getting stronger.  Before starting Hansen's, my cruising pace was about 9:20 per mile.  Now, I'm at 8:30.  
8. This training plan scares the hell out of me.  One month ago was my first real speed training session.  A few weeks ago was my first tempo run.  Six months ago, I thought people who ran 6 days a week were begging for injury.  I'm very nervous to reach the 60 miles per week, but my body has handled it so far.
9. I have to follow the plan exactly.  If I skip a day, go out faster than prescribed, or don't work really hard, I notice the effects the next day.  I'm also afraid of getting injured.  
10. Rest days are miserable.  I am painfully sore on Wednesdays and I feel really fidgety. 
11. Runners respond to this method really negatively, "You can't possibly think you are going to do well at Colfax without running a 20 miler somewhere in there!"  Or they say, "You are running too much."  
12. Non runners think I'm crazy.  I've actually had people look me in the eyes and say, "I'm sorry."   

I've got 17 weeks left until the race. Last year, I ran Colfax in 4:25.  I hit the wall a couple times on the course.  It was a harder course than I expected with much bigger hills than I imaged rolling around Downtown Denver.  I ran with pleurisy, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone.  Since that race, I've told people I want another go.  I want to prove that I am stronger than 4:25.  This year, I aim to run Colfax in under 4:00.  I am training for a strong 3:58 finish. 

~Roadburner

Mother's Marathoning Guilt

Six years ago my first son, Ethan, came along.  I quit teaching 8th grade American History and became a stay at home mom.  I about drove myself crazy.  My A-type personality desperately needed goals and stress.  And worse yet, I didn't sleep for the first 14 months of Ethan's life as he had allergies, colick, and severe reflux.  He slept 2 hour stints at the most, and pretty much cried the other times he was awake.  It was a really trying first year and while I would like to look back at that time with a great sense of humor, you couldn't pay me a zillion dollars to go back to that stage.  My poor husband must have thought I was going to jump off the deep end any moment as I cried a lot and rolled my eyes at him equally.  Fast forward six years and Ethan is healthy, happy, hilarious, and vibrant.  Oh, and he SLEEPS!  Thank God. 

My boys at the park this summer.

Anyway, the point of my story is that I needed something to hold onto.  I needed a firm rope to keep me grounded.  My husband took up running around this time and I thought he was crazy to run 6-8 miles in one day.  "There is no way that is healthy!" I would grumble.  But I was secretly jealous that he had the strength and courage to run out that door every day and somehow run back in an hour later.

My husband at the Air Life Memorial 10K in 2012 where he PR'd by over 5 minutes!

Somewhere along the line, I started running to save my sanity.  I desperately needed those few hours a week to myself.  I didn't push a jogging stroller, EVER.  I didn't want a baby with me.  It was, and still is, MY time.  I am a better mother, wife, friend, and person when I run.  My weekly mileage stands for so much more than a number.  Those are the steps I took away from my family every week.  They were the moments where no one asked me for the 14th snack of the day, or desperately needed to know right now, at this very moment, "WHERE is my bear?"  No one is grabbing my legs or pulling my fingers one direction or another.  Orange juice is not being spilled all over my freshly cleaned couch.  I am alone for that one hour and holy bonanza, I LOVE it!

When I walk back in the door every morning, my boys greet me with a much anticipated, "Good morning, Mom!"  Their little smiles bring me back to reality, and in my post run high, I run up to each of them with big sweaty hugs and kisses and find out about last night's dreams. We immediately begin planning our daily adventures together while I make breakfast.

When I first started running, it was only 3 days a week, maybe 10-15 miles.  Over time, that number has dramatically grown and my commitment to the sport has tripled.  I ran my first marathon using the Hal Higdon training method, which dedicated 25-35 miles per week.  For my second go at the Colfax Marathon, I've taken on an entirely different training strategy that requires 50 miles per week on average, spread out over 6 days. That's about 8 hours a week.  In short, my kids hate the new schedule. 

Daily, I return from my morning runs as my boys greet me with amazing hugs and then quickly ask, "Why do you ALWAYS have to run?  When are you going to stop this?  Didn't you just run yesterday?"  I tell them that running makes mommy happy and healthy and it is the only thing that I ask for every day that is strictly for me.  They don't understand that yet, and I hope it will someday sink in.  My husband is extremely supportive and he tells them the same things, but I can't help feel the insane amount of guilt when their little puppy eyes beg me to stop this nonsense. 

I've begun getting up an hour earlier (5:45am or before) so that I can run and be finished, or close to being done by the time everyone else in the house wakes up.  But I still hear complaints on the weekend when I run longer, or if I miss their waking up by 10-15 minutes.  I started this nonsense to break away for small fractions of time.  I needed goals outside my kids.  It was a way to find me again.  Yes, I am a mom, but I am more than that.  And running proved it.  When I am with my kids, I give them 100%.  I love them desperately, but there has to be a balance. 

I don't want running to get in the way of everyone else in my family.  They didn't sign up for the marathon, I did.  It shouldn't affect my kids or husband, but the reality is, you can't train to run 26.2 miles without putting a little pressure on the system.  It's with their unwavering support and patience that I will cross the finish line again in May. 


How do you strike the balance between parenthood and mileage?  
Does your family make you feel guilty for running?

~Roadburner
 

Yasso 800s

Seventeen weeks remain until the Colfax Marathon.  I've incorporated Yasso 800s into my Hal Higdon training plan, hoping to increase my strength, speed, and endurance.  Bart Yasso came up with the idea to run a series of 800 meter laps around the track in the same number of minutes as your marathon goal time.  For example, I aim to finish my first marathon between 4:00-4:20.  Therefore, two laps around the track should take about 4 minutes.  Starting small, your first workout should be around 2-3 miles total. After a few months of this, you build towards 5-6 miles at the rapid pace.  Today was my first set of Yasso's; 3 miles was a great workout!

I started out with a few laps to warm up.  Then the work began.  I had a hard time maintaining 2 minute laps, so my series of 800s varied between 3:30-3:58.  In between each 800, I took one lap at a 9:30 pace to cool down.  I ran this routine for 3 total miles.  Granted, it would be easier to maintain a consistent goal pace on a treadmill, but the track was more fun. 

Although, I am not extremely fast, I am very competitive.  It was a challenge to see if I could push just a little faster for each lap while maintaining my breathing.  Track workouts are usually my pit of despair.  I get bored easily and end up quitting early.  However, the competitive nature of the Yasso's kept me intrigued.  Could I maintain at that pace, or speed up with each progressive lap?  There was also something really peaceful about watching the sunrise over the track.  No one was around, and it was so quiet all I heard was my cadence matching my breath.  

For the next 15 weeks, I've scheduled one Yasso workout a week, adding 1-2 additional 800s each week until I reach 6 miles.  While I can't verify whether the workout will really train my legs to run at my goal pace for 26.2 miles, I can definitely appreciate the speed workout compared to my slow distance runs that I've become so attached to.  Varying the speed creates a balanced training diet.  It will also be interesting to see how this workout improves my 5K pace.

Marathon Training Week 1

I've completed my first week of marathon training and already I feel a bit like a pregnant woman.  Hear me out...  I am obsessed with my training program.  I don't want to run too much or too little.  I started doing yoga, again.  (The last two times I did yoga, I was pregnant.)  Calories and food are always on my mind.  Weight gain or loss is of definite concern.  I feel fit and beautiful in a new, goal-oriented sort of way.  And, I feel exhausted looking at the 18 weeks ahead.  I am not in the meat of the program and just like my first prenatal visits, the enormity of the task at hand is hitting, hard. 

Last year, I ran some really tough races.  I put my body through a plethora of tests and after my final race of 2012, I was confident that I could run and finish a marathon.  It is easy to talk about it.  Anyone can sign up to run a race, but the training itself is alarming!  I decided to use Hal Higdon's Novice II Marathon Training Schedule and like a good little runner girl, I immediately marked my calendar dutifully with each daily distance requirement. 

Two days later, I went back to that calendar and added up the required weekly distances.  It started out as expected, but I quickly found my jaw dropping as I saw 33 miles, 36 miles, 45 MILES!  Anyone with heart can finish a marathon.  I have heart, but I know I will need some extra encouragement to get through this.

Just like pregnancy was a long road, that ended with a rather painful, exhausting, and exuberant end, I know the marathon will too.  When I complete 26.2, I will learn more about what kind of a woman I really am.  I am not talking about life-changing, mind-altering, realities mid-race.  Being a mother taught me a different kind of strength.  The kind that is hidden deep within until you really need it to care for someone you truly love, or to push through pain unlike any other and know you can do it again.

This is the first time I have been truly nervous for a race.  If I didn't hit my ideal pace or time for a 5K, it bothered me but I didn't loose sleep over it.  The idea of running 13.1 never felt daunting.  I like 8-10 mile runs and I knew I could finish, even if I had to walk.  This is the first time I see a formidable distance glaring me down from afar, but I am motivated to finish.