I chose to use Hal Higdon's Intermediate 2 plan, with the speed, hill, and tempo workouts from his Advanced 1 plan thrown in. I realized early on that trying to adhere to set running days during the week just wasn't going to work for me, so I've done a lot of shifting the days around and doing the runs when I can. I'm someone who likes the structure of a training plan and ideally would stick to certain days, but I've had some things going on at work and home that have prevented that, plus I'm a triathlete who also needs to swim and bike on top of marathon training, and it's always a struggle to put all of the pieces together. I've completed all but 2 of the runs on my plan (I cut one long run short for shin pain and skipped one when I was sick), so even though this is the most play-it-by-ear I've ever been in a training cycle, I've still managed to get it (mostly) done.
One of my goals for the first few months of this year was to really figure out a schedule that would work for me. I'm going to spend the bulk of this year in hardcore training, with marathon training in the spring and then Ironman training in the summer/fall, and since I struggled with Ironman training last year, I really wanted to get a handle on the scheduling part this year. It's been a real struggle, and I've had less and less success with training on my own. I'm able to stick to my runs, but have had a really hard time getting in swims and bikes. That could just be because I'm a little burnt out on swimming and biking from last year, or because I'm focused on running right now, or probably both, but it wasn't until I started YTri during Week 12 of Shamrock training that I really started to feel like I was getting into a groove with all three.
From Weeks 8-12ish, I was having the most trouble with sleep. I don't know if I was feeling drained from the holidays, tired from training, dealing with SAD, or if I was feeling weighed down by the political climate, but I was exhausted all the time. I have had low iron in the past and have taken supplements for it, but not in many years. I decided to try taking them again just to see if it made a difference, and while I'm not particularly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every morning, I'm not waking up feeling like I got hit by a truck anymore, so that's an improvement.
In a lot of ways I feel like this has been one of my best training cycles. I'm still not sure if I'm going to hit my goal, but when I look at the way I've trained and the way I've run each run and just the way I've handled training in general, I do feel like it's been mostly a success. I learned the hard way in my IMNC experience last year to separate the experience of training from the experience on race day - just because race day doesn't go as planned doesn't mean the entire training cycle was a waste or was unsuccessful. So since I don't yet know what's going to happen on race day, whether I hit my goal or not, I still feel like I've had some victories in training:
One of my goals for the first few months of this year was to really figure out a schedule that would work for me. I'm going to spend the bulk of this year in hardcore training, with marathon training in the spring and then Ironman training in the summer/fall, and since I struggled with Ironman training last year, I really wanted to get a handle on the scheduling part this year. It's been a real struggle, and I've had less and less success with training on my own. I'm able to stick to my runs, but have had a really hard time getting in swims and bikes. That could just be because I'm a little burnt out on swimming and biking from last year, or because I'm focused on running right now, or probably both, but it wasn't until I started YTri during Week 12 of Shamrock training that I really started to feel like I was getting into a groove with all three.
From Weeks 8-12ish, I was having the most trouble with sleep. I don't know if I was feeling drained from the holidays, tired from training, dealing with SAD, or if I was feeling weighed down by the political climate, but I was exhausted all the time. I have had low iron in the past and have taken supplements for it, but not in many years. I decided to try taking them again just to see if it made a difference, and while I'm not particularly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every morning, I'm not waking up feeling like I got hit by a truck anymore, so that's an improvement.
In a lot of ways I feel like this has been one of my best training cycles. I'm still not sure if I'm going to hit my goal, but when I look at the way I've trained and the way I've run each run and just the way I've handled training in general, I do feel like it's been mostly a success. I learned the hard way in my IMNC experience last year to separate the experience of training from the experience on race day - just because race day doesn't go as planned doesn't mean the entire training cycle was a waste or was unsuccessful. So since I don't yet know what's going to happen on race day, whether I hit my goal or not, I still feel like I've had some victories in training:
- For the most part, running has not felt like a chore. That's not to say I've been excited about every run, and there have certainly been times I've had to really push myself out the door, but most of them have felt like...something I just have to do. Whether I want to or not, whether I feel good or not, I just have to get it done.
- I was only slightly derailed twice, and I didn't fight back. I started having some minor shin pain in Week 7, and by the time I went to do my long run that weekend (15+ miles) it was hurting just walking around my apartment before I even left for my run. I tried to run anyway, thinking maybe things would loosen up after a couple miles, but when I was 2.5 miles in and it still wasn't better, I decided to call it a day and go home. I think I
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