Marathon Training Update – 5 Weeks Out

Happy Friday!

My exciting news is that fall weather has finally arrived in North Carolina and it’s making all of my running dreams come true. After four months of running through hot temps and high humidity, I want to cry over how light, crisp and cool the air feels. It’s unbelievable the difference it makes in the effort that I feel. This weather arrived just in time to push me through the last couple of weeks of hard training before I hit the taper. I’m just praying for a pretty fall day like this in Savannah for the Every Woman’s Marathon.

Let’s do a marathon training update! I am FIVE WEEKS OUT and I crossing all of my fingers and toes and knocking on wood when I say…things are going really well! For the first time in my entire 23 year running career I have been able to fully follow a marathon training plan with no sidelining injuries, burnout or major life things popping up.

I would like to give 99% of the credit for this incredible phenomenon to STRENGTH TRAINING! And not the strength training that I have done during this marathon training cycle (although I have been lifting 2x/week through training) but the consistent, heavy strength work that I’ve been doing for the last couple of years.

While I absolutely adored teaching group fitness and it lit me up – my body got to a point where it did not love the lower weight/higher rep nature of it. The type of group exercise classes that I taught always involved me doing the full workout with them. Post-Finn I was teaching group strength classes 2-3 times a week and that was mostly what I was doing for my strength work. Don’t get me wrong, my classes were challenging and it was a good workout but I wasn’t getting under any really heavy loads. The studio closed two years ago this October and at that time I decided to get myself involved at the gym again – both lifting and personal training.

Returning to lifting heavy weights and including barbell movements like squats, deadlifts and bench press into my strength routine has been transformative for my chronic hip injury and for my running. I only lift 2-3 times per week, usually full body, but each workout is super intentional and focused. (If you want to follow similar workout programming, please try out my app! I give options for home and gym.)

When I was asked to partner with PET Dairy and to join Team Milk to train for the inaugural Every Woman’s Marathon, I initially told myself I’d run half and walk half. I ran a half last April that went pretty well with fairly unstructured and minimal training, and then causally built my base over the summer. In July I decided to give a formal 16-week training program a go and see what happened.

Well, here I am 11 weeks later and just 5 weeks out from the marathon and I ran 20 miles last weekend!

I decided to switch things up for my 20-miler and ran the Lake Norman 15K for the second half of my long run. I needed a change of scenery and knew a race would give me a boost. Plus, I love this race and it was my third time running it. This turned out to be an excellent plan and my 20 mile run went better than I could have hoped. My body felt great through the entire run although I did struggle with some stomach issues. Those were due to being early in my cycle (I have a pretty iron clad stomach but all bets are off the first day or two) but I navigated my way around it. I was really proud of how the run went. It was the first long run where I could actually imagine running 26.2 miles. A great confidence builder.

I am also proud of how I recovered. That same day I spent some time in our recovery room at MOTION and did 15 minutes of sauna with some gentle stretching, 3 minutes of cold plunge, 15 minutes of squeeze legs (Normatec boots) and 10 minutes with the Theragun. The day after I had a massage and went for an easy walk. The next day I was ready to run again and did an easy 5! Here’s a video I made of recovery.

I’m going to do one more really long run next weekend – 20 or 22ish, 15ish after that and then I’ll taper for the last three weeks leading up to the race.

I don’t want to make marathon training all rainbows and sunshine…it’s definitely not. Marathon training is hard but it’s supposed to be hard. I’m at the point in training where I’m tired. I’m running on tired legs a lot but that’s the point. Fall weather arrived at just the right time to give me a push in these final tough weeks. I feel like my friends, clients and family are kinda sick of hearing about it lol. It’s kind of become part of my personality these last few months. “What are you doing this weekend?” Running. I’ve also had little physical things pop up here and there – my right knee and hamstring have been cranky here and there (due to my right hip issues) but nothing that hasn’t been manageable with rehab exercises and chiro visits.

To be honest, my biggest concern at this point getting sick – especially during the taper. I’m like “please god, if I’m going to get a cold…let me get it now.” Trying really hard not to focus on it but praying to stay well.

Okay…I hope that all made sense. I know I was a little all over the place but just some things that have been on my mind! If you have any specific marathon training questions you’d like me to talk about or go deeper into, just let me know!

Happy weekend y’all!