Blog

Training Update

In late September when I decided that I was going to spend the next seven weeks running and running and running to prepare for the Catalina Eco Marathon on November 12, I was a little worried. I felt good coming off a decent run at the SOS Triathlon, but I also knew that seven weeks might not be enough time to get from there to marathon shape. With that in mind, I just started running.

I started with three building weeks (33.6, 44.7 and 47.4 miles), then a recovery week (34.7 miles). This week I’m shooting for somewhere north of 50 miles, then I’ll do another hard week and a half, before I finish with an eight or ten day taper.

I’m happy to say (knock on wood) that the running is going really well. Since the Eco Marathon is hilly instead of super fast, I’ve been spending a lot of time climbing hard on the trails. Most weeks, I’ve been doing serious climbs on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (mostly with some combination of Jimmy, Lukas and Tyler) and doing recovery runs with some tempo mixed in on Wednesdays and Sundays.

The other bonus of all the running is that over the last few weeks, I’ve seen the sun rise from up high in the Santa Monica Mountains about a half dozen times. Starting at the base of the climb in the pitch black darkness, running up the trail with headlamps while the sky slowly gets a bit more light. Then, no matter how tired I feel, seeing that first bit of the sun peek over the horizon instantly energizes me and reminds me exactly why I’m out there. I wish I had pictures to share, but trust me it’s a beautiful sight.

I’m definitely not in marathon shape yet, but I feel like I’m making good progress. Now I just need to stay healthy!

In order to get the running miles in I’ve pretty much abandoned my bike. A few minutes on the trainer once a week is all I’ve been doing. I was going to hang up the swim goggles as well, but instead I’ve been going to this sweet “Swim-X”/swim bootcamp class that my friend Evan is starting up. It’s upper and lower body strength mixed in with swimming. Swim 50 meters, jump out of the pool and do some push-ups, swim 50 meters, jump out do air squats or lunges or shoulder presses, etc. It definitely doesn’t do much for my swim endurance, but it’s huge for core strength and I love getting some anaerobic work in every week. Also, since I’m definitely the weakest swimmer in the group, I’m able to get some tips and watch some good swimmers swim, which should help my form once I turn back to the endurance swimming sometime after the marathon.