Marathon Training Launch Party

There is a small chance that the first weekend of official marathon training could have been better

…mmmaybe.

But actually no, definitely not.

From start to finish, this was a run heavy, run happy couple of days. If the next 16 weeks are anything like the first weekend, I’m in for a real treat of a training cycle.

The run fun started bright and early on Saturday morning with 18 near perfect miles around DC.

Adjusting to long running again has not been the easiest process for my legs or my ego. My first two long runs back (I choose to define a “long” run as anything over 15 miles) were not terrible, but they also weren’t great.  My legs got fatigued, my paces were not that awesome, and I spent nearly every mile regretting the fact that I quit taking science classes in 11th grade and am entirely incapable of building a time machine to go back to October when I didn’t suck so hard at running. It’s tough to mentally adjust from being able to run double digits on a daily basis no problemo to struggling through the final miles of the one long run of the week. Have I mentioned that injuries suck? They do. I recommend steering clear of them.

The good news is: it gets better.

And on Saturday, it did. Everything just clicked. My legs felt great, my head was in it, and the pace naturally dropped back down to a long run speed that didn’t make me rain some F bombs on my garmin. As an added bonus, I ran into my friend Erik on the trail and got to run a few miles with him and hear all about how much he loves the Hokas I told him to buy 1,398,087 times during our training runs last Fall.

Immediately after my long run, it was time to head to my favorite bar and physically open it so the run fun could go on. 

Would you believe that this is the first time I’ve been the very first person to walk into a bar (slash remove the chain without permission)? It’s crazy, but it’s true.

Once on the other side of the chain, I met up with some of my favorite DC runners for some race planning (more on that later) and beer drinking.

Before you say “hold up, I thought you were done with beer drinking” allow me to clarify. I am not going to stop drinking for the next four months. I don’t think total deprivation is ever a recipe for success and I don’t have any desire to never enjoy an icy cold, or cask warm, IPA. This is about cutting back, which yesterday, I did.

A few post-long brews and I was home and in bed by 8pm. And a night light on the hops left me ready to hop out of bed before 7 am for more quality marathon training with quality people.

I met up with my friend Tris, who is also gearing up to run a massive PR at Vermont City Marathon, to do a nice and easy recovery run.

Tris is one of those really annoying athletes who can not train at all and still bust out disgustingly fast times. I would hate him for it but he’s moving to my neighborhood and has agreed to train lots with me so we can both kill it in Burlington. So for now, I’ll forgive him. But if he ends up running like no miles between now and May and still beats me: he will be on the express train to the top of my shit list.

We ran a little over 8 miles and got back to my neighborhood in time for me to hit up my favorite pilates studio for an hour of core rocking.

26.2 miles (totally unplanned totally perfect mileage) and a weekend full of runners: the marathon training party is officially on and raging.