2016 NYC Marathon (Pre-Training) – Week 1

I recently announced that I’m going to be running the 2016 TCS New York City Marathon (Sunday November 6th) to help raise awareness (and funds) for some great Down syndrome research.   You can learn more about it here, but I thought it would be fun (and maybe helpful for some) if I chronicled my journey to the NYC marathon, outlining my experience and training plan. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post a blog every week, but I’m going to try! Also I wasn’t sure I wanted to blog about my marathon training on this website since the goal of this blog is to tell Noah’s story. However, since I’m hoping to raise awareness and funds for Down syndrome research (which will ultimately affect his story) I decided to go ahead and go for it. Not to mention, I hope to run a race with Noah at some point!

So here we go with week number 1.

Week 1 Pre-Training

Since this is my first time to attempt to run a marathon, I thought it would be a good idea to sign up for a marathon training program. (I have used the Nike Training App to train for both a 5K and a 10k and think I could have also used it to train for this marathon. However, I thought it would be more fun to have a community of people to run with, especially toward the end of the training program when it gets time for the really long runs. This is just one of several reasons I decided to sign up for a group training program.)

The marathon training program  I signed up for doesn’t start until May 14th, so I am calling the next few weeks a “pre training” program. I’m actually thinking about running a 5K towards the end of May that a friend was telling me about so I set up an advanced 5k training program in the Nike Running App and am going to be using that between now and May 14th. I like the structure of a running program, I feel like it helps keep me on track.

New Running Gear

Almost all of my shoes are Nike. I like they look and feel. However I decided to go into a local running store to have them take a look at the way I run and perhaps make a suggestion on some running shoes that were specific to my running style. I was informed I pronate as well as have high arches so they suggested some running shoes with more stability. After trying on a few pairs I went with the Saucony Guide 9s.

Since I signed up for the marathon training program, the store where I signed up at gave me 20% a one time purchase so I decided to not only buy shoes but a new pair of running shorts (I only have one good pair of running short now and figured I’d need a 2nd when those hot Texas days approach), a hat, some socks and a few running shirts, one of which was a tank top singlet. (To be honest, I was telling my sister in law (who is a seasoned runner) that I couldn’t remember the last time I bought a tank top and she gave me a protein that when a “tank top” is used for running it’s called a singlet. I’ll admit I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a “singlet” before! But now I know…) All of that to say, I bought a singlet today!

This Week’s Training

As I mentioned I am using a plan in the Nike Training App until my official marathon training program begins. Throughout my training I want to share all of the details. My mileage, my times, etc. I’m not trying to beat a record, I’m just trying to make it to the finish line, so you’ll see that as I share my stats. Also by sharing my stats and story from now until the race in November we can monitor my progress together between now and the race. It will be fun to come back to this blog post in November and see how my times have (hopefully) gotten better.

This week went from Monday through Saturday. Here’s the details:

• Monday 4.01 Miles. 9’56” per mile
• Tuesday I did a class at OrangeTheory (which I really like) a got in 2.92 miles on the treadmill at 10’12” per mile.
• Wednesday – Rest Day
• Thursday – 4.01 Miles.  10’17” per mile
• Friday – Rest Day
• Saturday (long run) – 6.01 miles. 11’02’ per mile.
• Total miles – 17

For those of you not familiar with long running, each week (for the most part) I’ll be adding a mile or so on to my long run with the hopes of getting close to 26 miles sometime near November.

Ok, that’s my update for my first week of pre training. If you’d like to donate to the cause I’m running for (and help fund some awesome Down syndrome research) you can do so here. Thanks for all of your support and encouragement.