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Marathons+Moderation: Guest Post #12

Hi Healthy Happier Readers! I’m Jess from JessRuns.com.

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I’m super excited Ashley asked me to write a post in her Marathons and Moderation series. Fall is always the hardest part of the year for me to train because I have to balance my weekend long runs with my Saturday tailgating habit.

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Spending six hours every weekend at a tailgate hanging out with friends, eating bad-for-you food and not getting nearly enough sleep doesn’t tend to mesh so well with long-distance training. Some of my tailgates start at 6 a.m., which means I can’t exactly fit long runs in before the tailgate.

But after almost five seasons of somehow managing to balance both training and tailgating, I have some fine-tuned tips to share so you can make it work too!

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I hope you’re ready for some planning.

Step 1. Before the season starts, pull out the football schedule and figure out which weekend your team has a bye and when your team is on the road. Take advantage of those weekends to fit in your longest and most demanding workouts because you won’t have to stress out about getting to a game or a tailgate in time.

 DSC04287Step 2.  Identify the most important games. For me, this is always homecoming and a few other big conference games. Plan your short runs or recovery runs on those days.

Step 3. Build your training plan with flexibility in mind. There may be a weekend where one of the biggest games of the season conflicts with your 20 mile long run. Since you can’t move the game, I recommend moving the run. Shift it to the other weekend day, wake up extra early before work and get it done on Friday. Don’t stress so much about the day you get it done, just focus on getting the mileage in. 634283786414717012

Step 4. Embrace the weekdays as part of your training. In the beginning of your training plan you can probably fit your longest runs in on Fridays. That way you can save your shorter runs for the weekends when you’ll be busy tailgating.

Step 5. Back off the booze at the tailgates. Yes, it is possible to tailgate without going overboard. If you have a big run planned for the next day, keep yourself in check.

It’s totally possible to balance tailgating with your friends and training for a race. The key to making it all work is to plan around the biggest games and build enough flexibility into your training plan that you can move your long runs around.

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Marathons+Moderations: Guest Post #11

Today’s guest post comes from Evan! If you haven’t checked out his blog before you must do so immediately, if not sooner. But in between baking, cooking, and school he also finds time to run. His story today is different than some of the past marathons+moderation posts as his story includes overcoming injury. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! Now, hop over to his site to start carbo loading!

Everyone has an ideal race in mind for their first marathon: The perfect training plan, the perfect pacing, the perfect time. I know I did until I learned the hard way that things never go perfect.

The week I started marathon training I got a stress fracture. By any accounts that should be the end of a marathon dream, but for me it wasn’t. I was determined: I had paid the entrance fee and I wasn’t losing it. It took my 6 weeks just to run 2 miles at a time, leaving me with 12 weeks until the race.

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During those 12 weeks there was no moderation. I constantly broke the 10% rule of mileage increase week after week, pushing myself as far as I could go wearing knee and shin sleeves to prevent further injury. Runs during the week got shorter so that I could run farther on the weekend. My one 20 mile run went terrible because I didn’t plan my fueling, let alone the fact that I could barely run 20 miles in a week. Sheer determination and stupidity carried me to race day.

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Somehow I finished my first marathon, and in 4 hours and 19 minutes no less. It was short of the 4 hour goal I had in mind, but felt like a victory after all I had been through. I swore I would never run another marathon again, and then 5 days later found myself signing up for one the day registration opened.

Learning From Mistakes

In November I’m running the Philadelphia marathon. This time around is going to be different: I’m going to plan. With 14 weeks to go, I’m running 30 mile weeks and feel comfortable running 13 miles on goal pace. The training plan I have set up involves not one but three 20 milers so that I can not only run that distance but run it comfortably.

6a00d8341c4f8753ef011168d04f87970c-500wiMost of all, for the Philadelphia marathon I’m giving myself the gift of Time: time to build weekly mileage, time to increase speed, time to lengthen long runs, time to run long on the weekends, time to rest, and time to cross-train. All of those are important in building a good training plan. If you’re only giving a training plan 50% of your attention, squeezing it in when you can, you’re going to get 50% of your potential on race day.

If you’d like to read more you can check out my complete marathon recap and the 10 things my marathon taught me as well as my whole blog for vegetarian recipes to fuel your runs.

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Marathons+Moderation: Guest Post #10

Hi guys! I’m Theodora, and I blog over at Losing Weight in the City about how I maintain my 50-pound weight loss without sacrificing any of my fun, single girl in NYC lifestyle. I’ve loved reading Ashley’s Marathons and Moderations series and am happy to contribute to it.

While I usually like to approach everything in moderation, including moderation, training for a marathon makes this difficult.

I mean, seriously. Try going out for a night of drinks the night before you’re going to run 20 miles. Or after you’ve run 20 miles. Neither are particularly fun.

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This picture was obviously not taken before or after 20 miles.

But as a single girl living in NYC, my social life (and alcohol) are things I refuse to give up during marathon training. But in order to not die while running, some moderation and making your training social is definitely needed. Here’s how I do it.

Happy Hour. Happy hour is my best friend during marathon training. If I don’t have a run planned for the next morning (and sometimes even if I do), you can usually find me at happy hour. It is much easier to recover from a drink or two and run six miles than it is to recover from a drink or two and run twenty. Plus, I can still get into bed early after happy hour and get plenty of sleep.

Sunday Funday. Really, finding different times to be social is the secret to my not going crazy during marathon training. If I’ve stayed in on Friday night and Saturday night because of my running schedule, I’m usually raring to go on Sundays. Sunday brunch or a Sunday Funday is a great way to feel like I’m not missing out on fun just because I don’t want to go out on a Friday or Saturday night.

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Train with Friends. I don’t know if I would have been able to get through training for the Chicago Marathon last year without Ashley. We did most of our long runs together, chatting for hours and hours as we covered miles and miles. It helped me to think of marathon training as something fun and social, rather than something taking me away from my social life.

Don’t Miss Important Events. Unless you’re getting paid to run, it’s really not worth skipping important events to work in a long run. You can move around your schedule and find time to get your run in. I promise. Missing something important to get your run in will just make you resent running. I know it’s not always fun, but nursing a drink, or even (gasp!) drinking water beats missing out.

Embrace Step-Back Weeks. When you’re running 18 or 20 miles, a step-back week with a long run of 13 miles scheduled seems like a short run. (Because marathon training is crazy.) So, while I still don’t advocate going out and getting drunk the night before a 13-miler, go ahead and embrace it. Stay out a little later. Enjoy yourself.

One Glass is Probably Okay. This totally depends on the person, but I’ve found that, for me, I can handle a glass of wine the night before a long run without becoming too dehydrated. In fact, the night before my first 15-miler, I was way too nervous and one little glass of wine totally took the edge off.

Overdoing It Once in a While Won’t Hurt. A week before my marathon, I had a very late night. While I probably *shouldn’t* have done that so close to the marathon, I don’t think it hurt me much in the long run.

Plan Something Fun for After the Marathon. Or lots of something funs. Ashley and I got to know Fun Theodora and Fun Ashley very well once we finished our marathons. For me, crossing the finish line was well worth the months of sacrifice, but having lots of Fun Ashley and Fun Theodora nights after our marathons made us appreciate our free nights (as weird as they were at first) more than we ever had before.

So, while it does take quite a bit of sacrifice to train for and run a marathon, I think it’s totally possible to achieve moderation and keep an active social life.

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