Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Carless Routine

I officially started marathon training this week.  (Don't ask me for what race, I still don't know.  Probably Columbus, KC, Des Moines or Quad Cities, but I haven't committed.)  And due to the lack of car, I'm back to doing what I did all the time back in 2013, when I was in maybe the shape of my life?  Certainly at least in half and marathon PR shape.  Back in 2013, I was running fairly high mileage while training for Berlin. 


My schedule looked roughly like this every week:


Mon:  Boot camp, sometimes run home from boot camp (2.75 miles).
Tues:  Run 6-9 with running friends, then run 3.75 to work (slowly), work all day, run 3.75 home.
Wed:  Boot camp, sometimes run home from boot camp (2.75 miles), run 3.75 to work, work, run 3.75 home.
Thurs:  Run 6-9 with running friends, then run 3.75 to work (slowly) (and then work, and get picked up by my husband).
Fri:  Boot camp or 10k hill loop with running buddy.
Sat:  Rest (or occasionally race).
Sun:  Long run (14-22, depending on the week).


That was a lot of miles (for me) most weeks, but a lot of them were junk miles, basically all of my commuting miles, which were usually very slow (recovery pace or slower), sometimes doing run/walk with a co-worker.  And that led me to my marathon PR. 


And then I gained some weight, got lazy, and stopped doing 2.5 days of running commutes per week.  I've been pretty faithful about doing a running commute about one day per week since then unless it was a travel week, or the weather was bad, or I was tired... 


Then April happened.  We had houseguests for over a month and we spent most nights at the hospital with my cousin and his son (who is now fine, they flew home about a week ago).  That meant 0 running commutes for me (and about 5 more pounds, since lots of nights we'd pick up restaurant food to take to the hospital). 


Last week when I sold my car, I was forced back into the regular running commute routine.  I really should try to stick with it, even if/when I get my new car (hopefully this week!). 


Today is on track to be over 13 miles, which hasn't happened in months or longer.  Woot!

5 comments:

  1. Maybe this commute is just the thing for a PR marathon! That would be cool. "How I got rid of my car and ran the fastest marathon of my life" - I can see it in Huff Post.

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    1. Love it! If I could make that come true, I'd be thrilled.

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  2. so you're at my current level of weekly mileage. you're just ramping up your marathon training and i'm settling into summer mileage...no run over a half distance. i'll start seriously training for South Padre (mid-november) in august. it's a short training season, i know, but july is just way too hot in austin to be running long and not dying.

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  3. Interesting that your previous run commute routine with many slow miles led to your PR. I give you credit for doing run commutes in the hot summer! I am tempted to try it again myself. The first time I didn't it was too hot for me, but maybe I'd acclimate?

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