Which, you know, I totally did last year on race day. Lesson learned.
I read through all the training journal entries from last year and realized that if I had to do it all over again the one thing I would change is to start training way, WAY earlier. Like, you know, the summer before. As it was, I was still experimenting with running and training strategies halfway through the actual training schedule, when I really would have been better off to have had that stuff all worked out by week one. So if there's one thing I'm really adamant about doing differently this time around it's putting in all my experimental workouts and getting very comfortable with my gear and strategy and abilities BEFORE training properly starts.
Thus the pre-pre-training.
Between now and the end of the year my goals are to get in the habit of going to the gym 3-4 times a week for cardio, getting comfortable running mile-long intervals, and regularly running at least 3 miles a week (aside from walking and cross training). No specific workout days, total flexibility on when I do my workouts, just regaining my race day fitness level. I want to run a lot more of the race this time around and, while I gained a lot of ground as far as running ability goes last time, I really was still a novice runner on race day. I estimate that I ran about 4 miles out of the 26.2 last time. That's not a lot. At this point I'm envisioning even run/walk intervals for a race strategy, which means running half the time and over half the distance on race day. That plan, of course, is subject to change. But I should definitely be 100% positive I'm capable of keeping that kind of pace by week one of training.
Like I said, though, I'm starting out slow. I made it to the gym four times this week, as planned. Did two days on the elliptical and two on the treadmill. Ran a total of a half mile and walked the rest. I haven't really been running lately because of all the wedding stuff, and my joints have to get used to it again. No sense hurting myself now by starting out too hard.
But I did get some new gear! I've been wearing the first pair of running shoes I trained in for the last marathon as work shoes, and they've gotten disgusting. The pair I wore on race day have been my workout shoes, and they're still in good shape, but I've put enough miles on them that they're ready to be retired. So I got a new pair of Nike Pegasus, mostly because I had a 25% off coupon to roadrunnersports.com that was about to expire and they were already on clearance:
So my nasty work shoes have traveled to the dumpster (my toes were starting to push through the mesh, anyway) and I have a cleaner but well-worn pair of shoes for work, and I can start pre-pre-training in nice, new, cushy running shoes.
The other gear change I knew I needed to make was to get a running watch. Last year I used the MiCoach app on my Blackberry to track my runs via GPS. It worked great. And since my running intervals were based on distance, I didn't use any kind of device on race day. But now I have an iPhone, which I've found is superior to the Blackberry in every way except one.
The battery life is crap. Especially with location services on.
So I don't trust my phone battery to last through a 20 mile training run, especially if it's being used to track my speed and distance, signal intervals, and play music. Plus, I don't want to be fiddling with my phone during the race or trusting it to run an interval timer to keep me on pace. I just don't trust the battery.
While I didn't want anything with too many bells and whistles, I decided I would eventually need a GPS watch that I could use during training that would also be a good interval timer on race day. I wasn't planning to buy one this early, but we went to look at some today because, you know, why not? And since I was with my sister who likes to buy gifts for people all the time (because she's awesome) I walked out with a Soleus 1.0 GPS watch.
I charged it up and went to program it, and it seems like a pretty good runner's watch for the price, but sadly when I got into the instructions for programming it turns out that, despite specifically asking the staff at Academy for a watch with an interval timer, this one doesn't have one. It seems to have everything else, though. My sister also bought a Timex GPS watch and said if I don't like this one we can switch, so I guess I'll have to do that. I am disappoint.
So I've got over a year to become a better marathoner. My goal is to beat my time from last year, which is a pretty easy goal to beat. Honestly, just starting training earlier and sticking with the training plan to the end will pretty much ensure a faster run this time around.
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