I've spent the past couple of months training for the ING New York City Marathon 2012. I started training sometime at the end of May, and things got a little more serious when I bought, and began following, a 12-week training plan that called for peak mileage of over 90km a week (I made it up to 70km and more or less completed every long run the plan called for, with my longest run peaking at 33km).
Here's what I've spent the last couple of months doing: work. run. eat. sleep. repeat.
{This is the first time I've incorporated strength and resistance training into my marathon training, and it's helped my running tremendously}
I've also been scheduling weekly deep tissue massages with a matronly lady who presses and elbows you and makes you feel like you're some sort of walking stress ball. Her massages are *intensely painful and the first time I went, I spent the entire time perspiring on the table and exhaling audibly when the pain got intense. She tells me I look princessy and hardly like a runner, but that I'm strong and can take the pain and I don't scream / moan but suffer in silence, and then she proceeds to press harder. Right.
The strange thing about all this training is that I've been craving beer while I run. Probably the body's response to a self-induced ban on alcohol, barring some very exceptional circumstances *ahhem.
To make my life easier I also bought the Garmin Forerunner 610. The Forerunner 610 is a touchscreen GPS watch that feels like a mini iphone of sorts, and I was pleasantly surprised by how responsive (in a good way) the touchscreen was. It measures time, distance clocked via its satellite tracking system, gives me my split times for each kilometre and wirelessly connects and transmits data to my computer. You can also opt to get a heart rate monitor, which I did, although I've only used it once. All in, a pretty amazing watch. For the past 3 years or so I've been watching all my running friends buy a GPS watch in some form or other and I've always resisted, but I finally caved in and bought this, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it really makes life easier, helps your training, and totally brings out your OCD side.
Am now in the final 2 weeks leading up to the race on 4 November 2012, and the training has eased up and I've entered a different phase altogether, in the belief that the hay is in the barn and it's now TAPER TIME.
Aside from being sidelined for 2 weeks sometime back in August with an ankle sprain (it was a stupid, stupid accident which happened when I tried to sidestep some runners who were walking and blocking an underpass), I've been fairly ok injury-wise. There's been the occasional niggling sensation in the ITB and tight calf muscles, but nothing a few massages can't handle, so I've managed to keep things under control so far.
And seeing as how today was the penultimate Sunday, the training plan called for a 16km run, but I haven't been running much this week (got lazy and took the call about the hay in the barn a step too far lol) and my legs felt fine, so I scheduled a 20km run. I woke at 6:30am and started running at a very manageable 7:00am, quite unlike the 4:45am wakeup call and 5:45am run start I went through on my last long run just a week before, and the other not quite as early but early enough run starts in the preceding weeks. Somewhere at the 1.5km mark, I overtook 2 guys, who promptly decided to take me on and matched my pace. We'd just crossed the 5km mark when I decided it was only nice to make some conversation:
"How far are you running?"
Guy #1 (running alongside): "7.5km there and 7.5km back. You?
"20km"
Guy #2 (behind us): "How far?"
"20!"
Guy #2 says to Guy #1: She's kicking our ass, man!
That made my morning.
We made it for a couple more kilometres before Guy #1 abruptly said bye and dropped off, presumably to wait for his lagging friend and the remainder of my run was done solo. Weather was manageable, it's Singapore so it's perpetually hot and humid, but it'd also rained heavily the night before so temperatures were unusually cool and I completed the 20km in a 1:41. Yay!
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