Tag Archives: Runner’s World

Jan30

Running Motivation!

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Good Morning Loves! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are ready to face the week with new energy and enthusiasm.  I had a very relaxing weekend.  Friday night was rainy and I was exhausted from a stressful week last week.  Michael and I ordered take out, watched Secretariat and went to bed early.  Quite honestly, it was perfect.  I headed out for a 7 mile run Saturday morning and enjoyed some sunshine and beautiful 40 degree weather.  I spent the remainder of the day studying for my personal training exam and relaxing.  We went and tried a new restaurant in the North End of Boston with Michael’s family Saturday night and had a great time.  Sunday morning I woke up and felt horrible.  I had a sore throat, congestion and a headache, Michael didn’t feel any better than I did.  We spent the day relaxing and trying to recover.  I hope this cold stays away thanks to a lot of rest and fluids.

Here’s a look at least week’s workouts. It wasn’t my greatest week of workouts.  I was exhausted and tired most nights from a stressful week and my legs felt tired and heavy on most runs.  I’m thankful that it was a recovery week for my marathon training plan.  My body definitely need a rest.

Last Week's Workouts

Not only did my body need a rest from running so did my mind.  I have not been feeling the most motivated about marathon training.  It is a little discouraging since I have been looking forward to running the Boston Marathon for years.  It has always been a goal of mine! So why am I lacking motivation?  I think it is because I have been constantly training for a race since this time last year.  In one year I’ll have ran two marathons and one half-marathon.  I’m just getting tired of following a plan and constantly motivating myself for a tempo run or a long run or whatever kind of run it may be.  I’m looking forward to some freedom in working out.  So Saturday while I was out running I was trying to think of some ways to motivate myself so I can get over this little bump.  I thought I’d share since it’s January and the idea of comfort food and movies probably sounds better than the gym and all of our resolutions are slowly being forgotten.  So here’s 10 tips to keep us motivated to run!

1.  Run For a Cause.

I just raised over $4000 since December for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  That is amazing and does so much good for those suffering.  Fundraising is only half of the work, the other half is running.  I need to stay motivated to keep supporting my cause and helping those who aren’t healthy enough to run a marathon! If you are running and fundraising for a cause you need to keep running and training and supporting your cause as well!

2.  Find a New Route. 

I run the same routes again and again.  With it being dark most nights I’m down to one route or the treadmill.  Finding a new running route is my mission this week to help keep things fresh and challenge me on my runs since I know I won’t be 2.52 miles in when I hit a specific intersection.  Find a new route for yourself or try running your favorite one backwards to add some variety.

3.  Plan a Run Date.

There is nothing better than a run with a good friend.  I love chatting for miles on end and having a friend to pass the time with.  I plan to go to practice with Team in Training next Saturday to see some friends and run with them.  It will help pass the time for 16 miles and will make it more fun! You should schedule a run date too! It will challenge you and encourage you!

4.  Get a Massage.

I’ve had really bad low back pain after my runs lately.  It is very discouraging! Since “monster month” with my highest miles is seeming very overwhelming to me I am going to schedule a massage for the rest week following.  It will help soothe my muscles and will give me something to look forward to while I log those long runs!

5.  Make a New Playlist.

I don’t run with music.  Ever. But if I get really desperate I’ll create a new playlist and hit the pavement with some tunes to get my body moving and motivated.  If you regularly run with music trying making a new playlist to add some variety to your runs!

6.  Bribe Yourself.

Yep, I said it and I do it.  Do I want that new gym bag? I sure do! Do I want it bad enough to run 100 miles? Probably.  If there is new gear I’m lusting after but not feeling particularly motivated I bribe myself by setting a goal and once I accomplish it I reward myself by purchasing it! Sometimes it’s a new Lululemon top, other times it’s a cupcake from my favorite bakery as a reward for running that 20 mile long run.

7.  Plan my race day outfit!

Ok, yes I love workout and running gear and really use any excuse in the book to get it.  Sometimes looking online and planning what I might want to wear on race day is enough to get me fired up about the event and forget about my running slump!

8.  Tweet for Motivation!

There is a whole community of healthy living bloggers on Twitter! They are amazing people who encourage and support each other! Tweeting to the community and asking them for what motivates them to workout will inspire me to get out the door!

9.  Read Runner’s World Daily Motivational Email.

You can sign up for a daily email from Runner’s World to help motivate and inspire you to run! I get mine every morning and really look forward to them.  Sign up to get your own motivational email!

10.  Look on Pinterest.

Pinterest is filled with motivation and inspiration! I look to my motivation board and remind myself of the million and one reasons why I want to get out and run!

How was your weekend?  Are you less motivated to run in the winter? What keeps you motivated to run or workout?

Sep30

Marathon Training Plan for Chicago 2011

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A few of you have asked me how I have been training for Chicago Marathon (10 days away!) and what plans I use and if they are posted.  I love hearing your feedback and since I love talking about the Marathon and training it seemed like a perfect post to write for a Friday.

Before I share I’ll give you some background on why I choose a plan structured like this.  I ran NYC Marathon in 2009.  I was about a year out of college when I started training for the marathon and had been training regularly throughout that year.  I ran cross-country in college and often had 40 or 50 mile weeks.  I felt strong and confident about my abilities.  So I choose a plan that had me running 6 days a week with mileage starting around 40 per week and peaking at 55 miles a week during monster month. I admit, I trained dumb.  I forced myself to hit the pavement when I was exhausted, tired and sore.  I pushed through runs when my body was screaming for me to stop.  I knew I was pushing my limits but I kept pushing.  A month before the marathon I had searing pain in my knee.  I got back from a 14 mile run and could barely walk.  Something was wrong.  I went to a sports medicine doctor who told me I had a severe case of iliotibial band syndrome.  I received Synvisc injections every couple of weeks to help the swelling and control the pain.  I went to PT 4 times a week, wore a compression brace and spent the last month training on the elliptical.  I missed my longest training run and was thrilled to just finish a 13 mile run pain-free that last month.  I was able to run the marathon, and had a pretty good race.  My time was 4:03:51. I wanted to qualify for Boston and likely could have if I had trained smarter and been kinder to my body.  Lesson learned.

So when I decided to do Chicago part of my motivation was self-redemption. The marathon beat me when I did NYC. I needed to prove to myself I could beat it. From November 2009 to June 2011 my training was easy runs during the week, a long run (no more than 10 miles) on Sundays and copious amounts of yoga. The IT band syndrome was gone and I was running better than ever.  I needed to stick to this general training idea but increase my mileage for marathon distances. I researched a lot of plans on Runner’s World and ultimately chose the Runner’s World Smart Coach.

I choose the Smart Coach for 3 reasons:

1.  It had 4 days of rest or cross-training.  This would allow me to keep practicing yoga, heal my body and get in cross-training time on the elliptical.

2.  It will adjust if you miss some runs or need some time off.  You can do this by simply clicking on the workout and marking that you missed it.  I liked this feature as it took the guess-work out if I got sick or injured.

3.  You can adjust your goal time and it will automatically adjust your target paces for training runs and speed workouts. I liked this feature because it made the plan flexible and would make it easy to keep training correctly should my goal time change for any reason.

Here are the 3 basic workouts the plan consisted of:

Tuesdays: An easy recovery run ranging anywhere from 2 to 9 miles.

Thursdays:  A speed workout or tempo run.  A speed workout consists of a warm up, 3x 1600m’s with a 800m jogs and a cool down.  A tempo run consists of a warm up, 3,4, or 5 miles at tempo pace and then a cool down.

Weekend:  A long, slow distance run.  In the beginning runs started at around 12 miles.  The longest run was 20 miles.

Since I did purchase the plan from Runner’s World I don’t want to disclose the whole plan.  Instead I’ll show you snippets of it.  Keep in mind my goal time for the marathon is 3:35.  That is an average pace of 8:12 min/mile.  My tempo runs, speed workouts and long run paces are determined off my goal time.  The plan totaled 16 weeks.

Here is the first 4 weeks of the plan.  The focus was on building endurance and mileage.

Training Plan Weeks 1-4

Notice that the last week was a rest and recovery week with no long runs.  I really liked this, it allowed me to recover and come back even stronger for the next 4 weeks.  After this we continued to build again for 3 weeks.  The third week we hit 20 miles for our long run.  The 4th week was another rest and recovery week so the runs were only about 7 or 8 miles each.  After that we began monster month.

Monster Month

This month seemed long and daunting when we came to it, but in the end it was pretty manageable.  By the time it came we were in really good shape and able to tackle these runs well.  Non-running days however did involve lots of rest and I dropped a day of yoga during this month since I was constantly tired.

The final three weeks of the plan are the taper.

3-week Taper

I really liked this plan and feel very confident, healthy and strong going into the Chicago Marathon next weekend.  Additionally I think that incorporating yoga three to four times per week  and trying to cross-training in the early weeks was beneficial.   Variety is the spice of life! I would recommend the Smart Coach plan to any of you runner’s out there.  It can be adapted to 5k’s, 10k’s, half-marathons and any other race distance.  I will post an update after the marathon with a recap and let you know if I accomplished my goal time and qualified for the Boston Marathon!

What training plans do you use? What is your weekly mileage? How many rests days do you take per week?