Marathon Training & Race Day...

The last couple of days have been right on target with the nutrition. This morning I jumped on the scale to a new cutting low of 206. The cool part, my lifts in the gym are going up and in fact last week I hit one of my personal goals for my strength training, bench pressing my body weight!

That means I'm dropping the fat and adding lean mass which is a very difficult balance between really hard work in the gym and in the kitchen. I'm dialed in now, last night we were out getting some sandals for Gracie and decided to head over to Sonic for some ice cream! Not me, they sucked down their ice cream and I stayed dialed in, no thank you!

Tonight is the Candlelight 5k charity run and I'm really looking forward to the run. It's a challenging course but I'm up for the task. I would love to PR but I'm not going to worry about time I'm just gonna go out and run as hard as I can. Bring on the hills, I love hills, can you tell I'm trying to convince myself there?:) Anyway, it should be alot of fun and Gracie is excited because she gets to stay up much later then her normal bedtime! I remember when I was a kid that was a really big deal so she will have fun.

This week brought on 4 strength training sessions and just 9 miles of running. I'm keeping the mileage dialed back a bit and will try and be consistent with 2 to 3 days a week. No more then 6.5 miles in distance. Come July 9th when the marathon training starts it will start to increase. My peak week is on week 15 (10/15 - 10/21) which will calculate to 42 miles with a long run of 22 that week. I will continue, as I said earlier, the strength training through the entire 18 week training plan. It will be the normal 4 day split routine up until week 10 and then I will move to a three day a week full body routine. That will last until week 16 were I will drop it down to just 2 days a week doing my full body routine, which will continue right up to race day.

I will be doing one 20 mile long run on week 13 and week 15 is the 22 mile run. After week 15 it's time to start the downhill in mileage. I'm going to take Thursday and Friday prior to the race as rest days. Total mileage through the entire 18 week program is 430 miles. I will be one lean mean marathon machine by November. One thing I also will do right up to the end is cross training which will be mostly biking but I may through some elliptical in there to switch it up every once in a while. Here's the breakdown on what I will be doing each week:

Monday - Strength Training
Tuesday - Easy Run + Strength (This day will start at 3 miles and only go to 5 miles by peak week)
Wednesday - Mid Distance + Strength (this day will increase to a 10 mile run by peak week)
Thursday - Tempo Run + Strength (This day starts at 3 miles and goes to 5 miles by peak week) I will rotate Tempo and Easy runs on Thursdays, so not tempo every Thursday
Friday - REST (Phew!)
Saturday - Cross Training (Biking and Elliptical at nice easy pace)
Sunday - Long Run (Starts at 6 miles and goes to 22 miles by peak week)

Strength Routine
Monday: Chest/Biceps/Core
Tuesday: Quads/Calves/Core
Wednesday: Shoulders/Triceps
Thursday: Back/Hamstring/Core

Yes I am doing 4 straight days of strength each week. Keep in mind this is a split routine with good separation between muscle groups giving me plenty of rest between each one. I will also keep a close watch on the program and make changes as needed. I feel this program will be the best at making my marathon experience the best it can be. It will take alot of hard work but I am looking forward to July 9th when the training starts.

So there's the rundown of what my days will look like come July 9th. Most of my runs during the week will be done in the evening with some in the early morning hours. My strength training will occur during my lunch hour Mon-Thurs. My diet will also stay very strict through the entire 18 weeks. That's the plan, now it's time for an egg white omelet and start getting ready for the race this evening! Have a great Saturday night! - Jason