Marathon Redemption - Week 1

But the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me,
reminding me of all the times I've tried before and failed.
The waves they keep on telling me, time and time again,
boy you'll never win. You'll never win.

But the voice of truth tells me a different story.
The voice of truth says do not be afraid.
And the voice of truth says this is for my glory.
Out of all the voices calling out to me,
I will chose to listen and believe the voice of truth.

So here's my plan - every week of this training plan I'm going to post my favorite part of one of the songs I plan to put on my marathon redemption play list. And then I'll post stats from my runs that week. The music is to keep me inspired, the stats are to keep me accountable. I rely a lot on music to keep me going through the tough spots in running, and I try to make a different play list for every race that I do. "The Voice of Truth" seemed to be appropriate for this first week of marathon training, especially after the cold, windy, icy, poor-attitude long run that I just had today.

Despite running with my very favorite running partner and one of my very favorite people in the whole entire world, the Fair Weather Runner, my heart really wasn't in it today. It was cold, it was stupid windy in typical Wichita fashion, my legs felt like lead (which I think was probably related to the cold) and we had to stop and walk frequently over streets that were covered entirely with ice. Excuses, excuses. None of these things are really justification for me having a bad run, but it happens. But every bad run day tends to put nagging doubts back into my head about whether I can really handle the whole marathon again. How do I push myself through miles 20-26 of the marathon when I don't even want to finish a 10 mile run? Well, the voice of truth tells me I've done it before and can do it again - better, faster, and stronger than before. The voice of truth tells the nagging doubts in my head to shut up. The voice of truth tells me I'm not alone in this journey and that I just need to have faith. So I'll listen to the voice of truth and attempt to rid myself of my poor attitude before my next run.

Week 1 runs:

Easy run - 6 miles
Temp run - 1 mile warm, 3 miles at 9:03/mile, 1 mile cool
Long run - 10 miles

You'll notice I'm not posting times for my easy run and my long run - that's becuase I've decided I don't care much about those times. My easy runs should be easy, and today's long run - well, forget it. After we had to stop and walk over ice about 2 minutes into the run, I gave up on the idea of running for time.

Next week I've got a 5 mile easy run, 5 miles of 1600m repeats, and a 12 mile long run. My week is guaranteed to be insanely busy, so I'm very glad I'm following the three run per week plan right now.