Quality versus quantity

The most important thing that I have learned throughout these last 3 weeks of training is that I wasn’t pushing myself as hard as I needed to. Then again, I was running without a real goal and for me that is not something that works for me. I need to stimulus of a goal in my sights to keep me focused and that will push me to work harder and harder. I am constantly referring to the movie Forrest Gump when talking about goals. Remember when he is sitting on the bench and the feather keeps floating and floating with no real direction, going wherever the wind would take it? I want to be in control of where I go and that’s why goals are important to me.

When training for Ultra Marathon races (50K and higher) the main emphasis is on running long distances at a slow comfortable pace. The idea is to prepare my body for the rigours of being on my feet for a long time, sometimes as long as 18+ hours. There is no denying how difficult that training was but at the same time I had done so many of these ultras that I had to compensate by not running at top speed.

Now that I am training for a marathon I see what I have been missing and my body is responding in a way that I haven’t seen in years. I’m also craving more carbohydrates than usual and I’m seriously contemplating switching my diet to vegetarian at least for the majority of the time so that I can get the necessary carbohydrates into my system.

The training program I am on switches from slow to fast to medium tempo runs and always keeps my body guessing as to what is coming next. I’m also doing more core work than ever before since I have more time to do this after running shorter distances. Planks are becoming a staple now and I am doing these 2-3 times per week. All of this is helping me to become stronger and stronger.

In the beginning I had hoped to get down to about 150 pounds but I’m not sure how much strength I would lose if I did that. I am going to keep my weight around the 155-160 range which means losing about 8-10 pounds. I am confident that I will accomplish that before my race at the end of September.