If there’s a common theme for 2020 and 2021, it is that my training will not go as planned. In November I started a marathon training plan in hopes of running Little Rock. When that race got postponed, I took a break, and then started to train for a half marathon. That race ended up getting sold out (even the virtual option) and I felt lost. I just let my running become whatever it wanted to be. Garmin badges helped push me to keep running and molded my training. Then I started Hal Higdon’s Novice Marathon Base Training plan officially at the end of March, into the first week of April.
And then my mom died.
I had no energy for training. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to run – one thing my husband said to me the day she died is that he didn’t want me to stop running, that my mom would’ve wanted me to keep running. I assured him I wanted to run, but those first few weeks grief completely drained me. I didn’t sleep, hardly ate, and I definitely didn’t get enough fluids in.
Gradually over the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten back to the training plan, incorporating yoga for strength both physically and mentally. And now here we are, on the first day of May… where has the time gone?
I didn’t earn any Garmin badges in April. I did run a race – the Happy Little Trees 5k. My dad and Ken rode their bikes with me while I ran it. We took a little break almost halfway through to visit my dad’s friend, so it wasn’t run straight through, but who cares? That pit stop to talk to dad’s friend was way more important than running a “proper” 5k, especially a virtual one. I never ended up recording our time (I forgot) but it was 36:44.7, the best paces I’ve had in a while. And Dad got his first set of race swag!
- January 2020: 50.0 miles / January 2021: 77.7 miles
- February 2020: 78.6 miles / February 2021: 26.0 miles
- March 2020: 84.3 miles / March 2021: 55.2 miles
- April 2020: 96.4 miles / April 2021: 28.4 miles
- May 2020: 83.3 miles
- June 2020: 72.5 miles
- July 2020: 84.0 miles
- August 2020: 94.7 miles
- September 2020: 50.1 miles
- October 2020: 53.7 miles
- November 2020: 69.3 miles
- December 2020: 86.0 miles
- TOTAL 2020: 902.9 miles / TOTAL 2021: 187.3 miles
April 2021 Marathon in a Month: 5:20:10, 12:13 min/mile average pace. I started “Marathon in a Month” back in November. So far, the months rank:
- November 2020: 5:09:37, 11:49 min/mile
- March 2021: 5:19:11, 12:11 min/mile
- April 2021: 5:20:10, 12:13 min/mile
- December 2020: 5:25:24, 12:25 min/mile
- January 2021: 5:28:39, 12:33 min/mile
- February 2021: 6:02:29, 13:50 min/mile
I started this off because of a Marathon in a Month race put on by Indianapolis Monumental Marathon in November 2020 and then kept doing it. I am now genuinely curious if this might help predict my marathon time for October! Only time will tell, right?
What’s next? Today starts my run streak for mental health awareness month. I’m hoping to walk at least one mile every day AND run at least a mile every day. (I have Garmin badges to collect, too!) I might start the new Beachbody running program to incorporate strength training and recovery. Marathon training officially starts on June 14th.
RD on the Run 