TCM Training - Week #1

The first week of official marathon training is in the books and it was a great week. First, here are the workouts:

Monday - Easy 8.5 mile run
Tuesday - Threshold workout: 2 x 2 miles w/3 minutes recovery in between
Wednesday - Easy 7.3 mile run
Thursday - Interval workout: 8 x 3 minutes @ 5:30 pace w/4 minutes jog recovery on TCM course
Friday - Easy 7.2 mile run
Saturday - Easy 9.5 mile run on hilly trails at Afton State Park
Sunday - Long run (16 miles @ 7:07 pace)

The total for the week was 67 miles, my highest of 2013. Tuesday was my first Threshold workout of the training. These workouts are the key to just about everything I do in my marathon training. Nearly every week will include one of these workouts. Typically the segments are 1-3 miles in length with a short recovery time in between. The pace for the segments is at Threshold, which is the point where the body begins to struggle processing oxygen through the bloodstream. For a majority of people, this would be around your 10K race pace. On Tuesday, I ran 11:45 and 11:53 respectively for the 2 mile segments. The pace was right where it should be (5:52 - 5:56).

Thursday was another day involving a workout I plan to do regularly...training on the TCM course. For this workout, I covered the course from 14.5 to 21.5 (Minnehaha Parkway to St. Thomas hill). Getting familiar with the course will be vital to having a good race plan in October. My goal is to get on the course somewhere once each week.

Finally, today's long run was a great workout. I ran around Elm Creek Park Reserve on the paved trails early in the morning. Despite that, it was still hot and humid, so running at the pace I did made me feel very good about where I'm at right now.

In terms of my preparation mentally and spiritually, the two videos below will be helpful in understanding where I am at and what I am aspiring to do this summer and fall. The first is a video of Ryan Hall completing a workout leading up to his run at Boston in 2009. His explanation at the beginning of the video of the chant of "Ole!" and its significance of when it was used is phenomenal. The second video is of a performance by Hillsong United of a song called, "Go!" in which they use that same chant of "Ole!" in parts of the song. Much like Ryan Hall's prayer in leading up to Boston in 2009, my prayer is that my running of the marathon and the training leading up to it would be glorifying to God and that my running may be a way that people would see God working in the gift he has blessed me with. I know I won't be running anywhere near as fast as Ryan, but I know that if I can be running at my best, God will be glorified.