While I was training for the marathon, I postponed a lot of things. I thought to myself: I’ll focus on that after the marathon. I’ll have so much time after the marathon. So much for that plan.
Exactly one week after the marathon we moved. I thought I’d try to pile as many stress-inducing tasks as possible into a one month period. As a result, I have not run or exercised once since the marathon. Well, I suppose moving is a bit of a workout.
On the one hand, I feel this is OK. My knee is still healing and I was told by my Running Room clinic instructor to take the week after the marathon off. On the other hand, I feel stir crazy and lazy. I’m dying too get back into a routine.
One thing I totally let slide during the final weeks of marathon training was any strength training. I know I lost a lot of upper body strength because carrying a 7kg box of cat litter from the grocery store to my place – exactly a four minute walk – felt fairly challenging and my bicep actually hurt the next day. That is ridiculously pathetic. I feel like I actually used to have some good definition in my arms… now they are just lifeless limbs with no power. My first goal after the marathon is to gain back some of the upper body strength I lost.
My second goal is to get faster. I want to absolutely destroy the Sporting Life 10K this year and get a solid sub-50 minute time. I look forward to the shorter, faster runs after an entire season of long distance running. Imagine a Sunday morning run that only takes half an hour?! After a summer of Sunday morning runs that took 3+ hours, this idea seems positively luxurious.
My final goal is to maintain the base. At the STWM Race Expo, I had the opportunity to hear Running Room founder and CEO John Stanton talk and one thing he talked about was maintaining your athletic base after the marathon. To do this, he recommended running 16K every other week. Totally doable. In fact, I may start that plan this Sunday.
Will I run another marathon? I don’t know. Right now, I feel like the answer is no. I am SO happy I did it, but truly, marathon running is for crazy people. A half marathon? Absolutely. 30K? Very likely. But a full marathon? I think I might quit while I’m ahead and be happy crossing that item off my bucket list.
But then again… that’s what I said after my first half marathon.
Can I ask you a somewhat off topic question? What did the running room training program involve? As in, how many runs per week did you typically do and what were the distances for them? I’d love to know….thinking of doing one myself but want to understand the time commitment first. Thanks!
Hi Christine! Good question.
The marathon training program was three runs per week: Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday. Tuesday’s run was either hill training or speedwork – between 8 and 10K total. Wednesday was usually a steady run around 10K. Sunday was always the long, slow distance run. We started at 11K and worked up to 32K. Every Thursday, the Running Room would also invite in a different specialist to talk before we set out for our run. We had people talk about nutrition, stretching, heart rate training, running clothes, shoes… you name it. Overall, it was totally worthwhile. I didn’t always go to all the runs. I sometimes found that 3x a week + other training or yoga was too much, but I tried to never miss the long runs.
Hope that helps!
Thanks! That’s great info. And congrats again on your marathon!
I totally know where you’re at with not working out after a marathon & feeling lazy. I just ran my first and haven’t run since, a bit over 3 weeks now. I too thought, “Oh now I’ll just take some time to focus on everything else I’ve ignored!” including a new house that still needs organized, among many other things. 10 days went by very quickly. Then I got sick, and I’m just now feeling 95% back to normal, 3 weeks post-marathon. Ah, well–sometimes we need a break, right? Rests the body and the mind and keeps us from getting burned out. That’s what I am telling myself, at least. 🙂
Haha great advice. I’m going to stick with that too 🙂