Tag Archives: hitting the wall

Chapter 4

A few days ago, I passed the halfway mark of my training program for the Marine Corps Marathon. Eight weeks down, eight weeks to go.

This is where the real work begins. Before today, the plan was mostly familiar – things I had done while training for the four half-marathons I’ve already run. But starting today, it’s uncharted territory.

The plan for today was to go 15 miles, which I had never, ever run in a single day before. The previous week, I did 15 miles spanning two consecutive days, but this was obviously different. I was actually I little nervous this morning getting my stuff together to go out for it. Could I actually do it at all? How would it feel?

This is a familiar pattern – new things make me both nervous and excited. If I’m on top of my game, I’ll push through the nerves, knowing that the sense of satisfaction will be all the better. If I’m not, I’ll hate myself for it.

For today’s run, my goal was not only to finish it, but do it at the same pace that I’m targeting for my marathon, which is between 10:24 and 10:42 per mile. See, that’s the rub. If I’m feeling strong, I typically want to go much faster than that, and see what happens. That’s OK for a shorter race, but potentially disastrous for a marathon.

Training for, and running, a marathon requires discipline. Plan your work, and work your plan. There’s no escape hatch.

So this morning, I both succeeded and failed.

I succeeded because I did the 15 miles without a mishap: Two hours, 27 minutes on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail, on a sunny, mild, dry morning. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and I had plenty of company on the trail. I traveled parts I’d never seen before: new hills, new vistas, new experiences. That was great.

And I did 15 miles! Woohoo!

But I also failed because I did not hold my target pace throughout the run. I averaged 9:48, which would be much too fast for a full 26.2 miles. And, the last mile was a grind, which is not a good sign. There is little chance that I would be able to keep that up for my entire race – I would probably bonk. Today, there were some stretches where I hit the sweet zone, but it was on uphill segments, so it doesn’t really count. Mostly, I struggled to stay above a 10-minute pace.

This is something I’ll have to work on. And it will be key to completing the 26.2-mile course on October 27.