Leadwoman – the training schedule

I wrote my own schedule to begin with.  I absolutely HAVE to plan ahead.  I was teaching at TCU Spring semester.  I had to consider that LP started a new job and the girls schedules.  I needed to know, generally speaking, what my life was going to look like training and racing over the coming months.  I had coaches Gary Anderson, Madison Flowers and Steve Blackmon look at it.  None of them seemed to have any major concerns, so I rolled with it.

I signed up for several races.  Run the Rose 22 miler at Tyler State Park and Cowtown marathon (which I was super excited about as I had only done the 1/2 marathon for 7 years.)  I was even able to ride my bike outdoors in 12/31/18!  I kicked off the new year with a 2019 run and I joined FWRUNCO’s ultra training group on some Sundays with Mike, Betsy and Norman, Amy and Jon, Ron, Dave, Michael, Sarah, and Sourabh.

 

 

I was sooooooo happy trail running was part of my life again.  I had missed it.  Cowtown training continued and I was getting hung up on the fact that it would probably be my slowest marathon ever. Even compared to my first marathon. That was hard to accept, but I kept showing up, because I was part of a group.  The accountability was everything.  By this time, I had moved into a little bit of a faster pace group (9:30-10:00) with Coaches Will and Amy.  Will would always run the slower pace with me (9:45) and I owe him everything for that!

Training was in full force.  We had one of the coldest, windiest runs on 1/19/19.  Completely miserable.  Certainly not a run that I would have done on my own.  If I knew how to post videos here you could see what we were up against.  I kept training on the trainer and going to aerial yoga and getting lots and lots of miles in.

 

 

 

 

In January, I ran ~170 miles and rode ~185 miles.  Running the Rose was my first mistake in training.  I was not prepared to do that mileage on the trails.  I paid for it.  I was extremely sore for 4 days and it slowed me down from getting all the miles in.  I had actually taken the girls to Longview that weekend to spend time with my family while I ran.  After I finished the race and drove back, I was wiped.  It had rained most of the race.  Even though I enjoy the rain, my muscles were not happy about this decision.  However, I did start figuring out my nutrition for this time around.  Wavy Lays and strawberry clif shoks with caffeine were what I had this day.  I also learned that I couldn’t wear the Brooks shoes I had been wearing for the past 8 years.  They had produced a massive callous on my foot and it was pretty painful on long runs. All in all, even though I pushed it a little hard, I had some take-aways.

The second mistake I made early on was running with my really speedy neighbor (Meredith), while she was training to qualify for Boston.  We ran some sub 8:00 miles one morning and that did me in for a few days.  I was soooooo tired!  I learned early on (thankfully) not to be doing that stupid stuff.  Ultra running isn’t about speed.  It’s about endurance.  Finding a pace that you can do forever.  Even though they were things I knew my body was capable of, it wasn’t the training I needed for Leadwoman.